Dave Chappelle: Hannibal Buress ‘didn’t mean to destroy Bill Cosby’
Dave Chappelle has weighed in on the allegations facing embattled comedian Bill Cosby, saying that fellow funnyman Hannibal Buress “reignited a firestorm” with his now-famous bit from late last year.
Dave Chappelle has weighed in on the allegations facing embattled comedian Bill Cosby, saying that fellow funnyman Hannibal Buress "reignited a firestorm" with his now-famous bit from late last year.
Chappelle, who historically has been somewhat media-shy, recently discussed the subject with the Washington Post following his commencement speech at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. And to Chappelle, the whole situation is somewhat of a "paradox."
Via Washington Post:
"Bill Cosby got taken down by a YouTube clip of a Hannibal Buress show," said Chappelle, who considers Hannibal one of the most promising acts of his generation. "And Hannibal, I'm sure he didn't mean to destroy Bill Cosby, but that's what happened. I'm sure he didn't mean to."
Even though the allegations against Cosby had percolated for decades, it was the video that "reignited a firestorm," Chappelle said. "The paradox of it — you could do a whole story about that to much fanfare from a certain swath of the community."
Buress' bit, of course, was recorded via a cell phone at his October 2014 Philly stop. But despite that event having "reignited a firestorm," as Chappelle said, the comedian still remains steadfastly against using camera phones during comedy shows.
Or, as Chappelle puts it, "they're destroying comedy:"
"For me, it's more of a problem as a comedian who relies on the element of surprise," he said. "So many people record your shows and put them on the Internet before you get a chance to do it, it's almost hard to write fast enough to surprise an audience. In a lot of ways, they're destroying comedy. I don't think they mean to, but I don't think people understand what they're doing when they do it and the effect that it's having. That's why you don't see a lot of the big comedians out anymore.
Buress, for his part, seems to agree with Chappelle. Just last month, in fact, Buress banned the use of cell phones at his live show in Napa some six months after the Cosby bit went viral..
Cosby, meanwhile, recently won a delay in the unsealing of 2006 court documents related to a joint defamation lawsuit he currently faces. Additionally, the comedian has begun petitioning the California Supreme Court to review and dismiss a lawsuit filed by accuser Judy Huth.