Last fall, comedian Hannibal Buress made a joke about Bill Cosby at a comedy club in Philadelphia, and the resulting media pandemonium brought Cosby's sexual abuse allegations to center stage.
While he doesn't exactly regret doing the Cosby bit, Buress said he was definitely shocked by the uproar.
"Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the '80s," Buress said in the bit, mocking Bill Cosby's public persona. "Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby," Buress reasoned, "so turn the crazy down a couple notches."
Shaky video footage of Buress' Cosby joke went viral.
Nonetheless, Buress' public reaction to the media firestorm he helped ignite has been one of relative apprehension.
In a new interview with GQ, Buress opened up about the situation and revealed that the buzz around his Cosby joke actually halted Comedy Central's announcement of his new show, "Why? with Hannibal Buress."
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"You can't predict s--- like that," he said.
The GQ interviewer pressed Buress on the subject, asking whether he realized that his Cosby joke had made him "a feminist hero" for giving Cosby's many accusers the opportunity to speak openly about their abuser.
"People are going to put on you whatever they want to put on you," Buress responded, reluctant to accept the "feminist hero" title. "It is conflicting, because people think I'm like this amazing guy or something," he said, with a laugh. "I'm a decent guy."
Still, the comedian in Buress can't resist pulling a shot at Cosby when he's able to get people to laugh about it. At the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, for instance, Buress joked that he hates Bieber's music "more than Bill Cosby hates my comedy."
In the context of the GQ interview, though, Buress seemed tired of the subject.
"I don't know what the f--- else you want me to say," he concluded.
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