Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, Dubine Comal Bell. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Data Show. Yeah, maybe my last time. Welcome your
Speaker 1: last time. I feel like I might be doing my
Speaker 1: last You know what I appreciate you, my friend, is
Speaker 1: the last time we spoke was like in the heart
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. I was in my apartment and you,
Speaker 1: I think at home as well, and we're talking and
Speaker 1: I said to you, I said, you know, come out.
Speaker 1: Every single time I see you talking about racism, you
Speaker 1: talk about racism. You always bringing the room down. You're
Speaker 1: talking about racism, and I see you felt that as
Speaker 1: a challenge. You were like, you know what, Trevor, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna show you at this time, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby. You thought I brought the room down. Before
Speaker 1: the room is down, and they're down. A lot of
Speaker 1: them are down on me right now. Why would you
Speaker 1: choose to do this? I remember you calling me and
Speaker 1: you said, hey, do you I'm doing this documentary about
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby? Would you like to be in it? And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, yeah, there was no reason I
Speaker 1: would want to be part of this document but no.
Speaker 1: But in all honestly, it's because I know this is
Speaker 1: strange to say. Bill Cosby just was not a cultural
Speaker 1: influence talked about that, and it was so weird to
Speaker 1: me because I'm glad I've watched this documentary because now
Speaker 1: I truly understand how big cause me actually was. So
Speaker 1: tell me, why why do you think we need to
Speaker 1: talk about Cosby? I appreciate you talking about that phone
Speaker 1: call because I got a lot of nose for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, and I've been very clear about other
Speaker 1: than obviously hanimal bursts, I'm not I haven't said who
Speaker 1: said no, So thank you for outing yourself here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people said no, of course. Well
Speaker 1: I only said no because I didn't I could answer
Speaker 1: the conversation. I mean a lot of people. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: I understand that, but I'm saying like a lot of
Speaker 1: I mean, if you stack the the yes is next
Speaker 1: to the nose, yeah, and it's and you know, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people had a lot of I mean
Speaker 1: I had some really great conversations like the one I
Speaker 1: had with you, with people for a long time that
Speaker 1: ended in't no yeah yeah yeah. So when you're getting
Speaker 1: all the nose, did you think should I not be
Speaker 1: making this thing? Yeah? That was one of the many
Speaker 1: times I thought, and right now as I sit here,
Speaker 1: should I have been making this thing? It's like, I
Speaker 1: can't explain it other than I was. I'm always drawn
Speaker 1: to difficult conversations that you know, I think, uh, And
Speaker 1: because Bill Cosby was such a huge cultural racial figure
Speaker 1: in my life and so charted a path that I
Speaker 1: was like, that's the path I should be on. Do
Speaker 1: good work, be a comedian, but also do good in
Speaker 1: the world. Like a lot of black folks, specifically of
Speaker 1: my generation older, we were just gutted to find out
Speaker 1: about all these allegations and then wrestling with do I
Speaker 1: believe them? And I believe them, And so it's like
Speaker 1: and I that conversation is going in my head all
Speaker 1: the time, every time he makes an appearance or sends
Speaker 1: out sends out a tweet, and like, I'm always thinking
Speaker 1: about it and talking to other people about it, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I found myself in a position where I
Speaker 1: was talking to the producers of this doc about it
Speaker 1: and they were like, they had never thought about it
Speaker 1: this way, and so this is where we ended up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was I can only say I was
Speaker 1: compelled to do it by something that was not rational.
Speaker 1: I think you doing it has honestly opened up one
Speaker 1: of the hardest conversations that we need to be having
Speaker 1: in society, not just specifically about Bill Cosby, but about
Speaker 1: society as a whole. Right, it feels like, especially when
Speaker 1: you watch this docuseries, that they were almost you know,
Speaker 1: three generations of people that are going to exist. There
Speaker 1: are the people who came up with Cosby. You know,
Speaker 1: you are sort of in the hearts of that. Like
Speaker 1: as a child that was Cosby was one of the shape.
Speaker 1: It was part of shaping you. Really you know, I
Speaker 1: mean people were talking about this, you know, just before
Speaker 1: we came out for this interview, like my producers and
Speaker 1: they were talking about how like in white families, they
Speaker 1: were like, Cosby's this is the biggest thing. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a black or white was Cosby. He was America's dad,
Speaker 1: America's black, America's right, and he he had done so much.
Speaker 1: And you know, we talked about how, you know, you
Speaker 1: learned this in the documentaries, like how Cosby changed stunt
Speaker 1: men in America, Like Cosby was the one who said, hey,
Speaker 1: you can't have white guys in black face doing a
Speaker 1: stunt just get black stuntmen. He changed Hollywood felure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There were no stunt black stunt performers under contract until
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby. So you have this generation of people who goes, man,
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby changed my world in all the best ways.
Speaker 1: Then you have the now generation who goes like, well,
Speaker 1: I just know Bill Cosby as the rapist guy, right,
Speaker 1: And then you have the generation that goes like, how
Speaker 1: do we how do we live with the myths? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And the man yeah? And that you want to that
Speaker 1: question the documentary for yourself. I think the way we
Speaker 1: is to deal with all of it. I think the
Speaker 1: only way you can deal with it. Like Roland Martin
Speaker 1: makes a great point of like it you can't talk
Speaker 1: about black black you can't talk about American twenty century
Speaker 1: without talking about Bill Cosby. And I think he says
Speaker 1: black America, but you can't talk about America in the
Speaker 1: twenty century without talking about Bill Cosby. But you can't
Speaker 1: also ignore all the things that have come out in
Speaker 1: the twenty one century. And so for me, this whole
Speaker 1: doc is about creating a space to talk about all
Speaker 1: of it. It's we need to talk about Cosby, not
Speaker 1: Here's my thoughts on Cosby, And as you can see
Speaker 1: from that clip, there's a there's nuance, there's anger, and
Speaker 1: there's sorrow. There's a lot of a lot of it
Speaker 1: is based in conflict or royaling frustration, and you have
Speaker 1: to talk about all of it because otherwise we lose
Speaker 1: essential parts of American history. For a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing like they've been waiting for this conversation happen
Speaker 1: in some format. And the other problem in America we
Speaker 1: have the like it's not time now, It's not time now,
Speaker 1: anytime there's any your conversation. It just felt like when
Speaker 1: I started he was in prison, I felt like it's time.
Speaker 1: And then he got out. He got out on the
Speaker 1: last day of filming. Yeah, I had two questions, one,
Speaker 1: how did you feel about that? And too, did you
Speaker 1: ever reach out to him to be a part of
Speaker 1: the documentary? So he got out on the last day
Speaker 1: of filming. It was one of the most surreal days
Speaker 1: of my life up until tomorrow when he releases a
Speaker 1: statement about the dock, and the surreality will continue. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought maybe the project goes away, and also, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe the project goes away, you know, because it's just
Speaker 1: so hard to make. I didn't reach out to him
Speaker 1: because I was always clear that one, it's a conversation
Speaker 1: about him, it's not it's not a true crime documentary.
Speaker 1: It's not about finding out what this person thinks. It's
Speaker 1: a conversation about the legacy and the work and also
Speaker 1: the allegations. And I believe as I said, And it
Speaker 1: just felt like I had, really we had worked hard
Speaker 1: as a team to get to get the get to
Speaker 1: earn the survivor's trust, sit down and have these conversations
Speaker 1: in a more wide open way, and that would have
Speaker 1: felt like a real betrayal of their trust to put
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby into this. One thing I appreciated in this
Speaker 1: documentary is how you having those conversations, You know, it
Speaker 1: feels like you had to tackle tackle it in a
Speaker 1: nuance way. You can just go like, so what happened?
Speaker 1: It seemed like there was more to the conversation. What
Speaker 1: do you think we missed in some of the ways
Speaker 1: we were trying to have conversations in and around Cosby
Speaker 1: and in many of his survivors who came out. It
Speaker 1: was really important for me and the filmmakers and the
Speaker 1: other producers to go, let's show who these people were,
Speaker 1: Let's bring them in the dock when they're just commenting
Speaker 1: on the time and the era, and if they have
Speaker 1: good memories of Bill, cause them bring them in to
Speaker 1: talk about that. Because then the thing happens like maybe
Speaker 1: some woman is telling you about how Playboy worked and
Speaker 1: he who who Hefner was another man who's in this era,
Speaker 1: and you go, she's an expert because she was in
Speaker 1: Playboy magazine and she was a playmate. And then you go, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: she's a survivor, so you get to meet her as
Speaker 1: a human being who's an expert in her life in
Speaker 1: her field, and you don't, and you're not bringing all that.
Speaker 1: The survivor is about to tell me a story too.
Speaker 1: Is it possible to separate the artists from the arts?
Speaker 1: Do you think it is possible? I mean, I would
Speaker 1: say this, We separate the art from the artists all
Speaker 1: the time. There are so many ways it could be.
Speaker 1: Musicians could be actors where they don't have to be criminals.
Speaker 1: But you go, like, right now you're talking about Eric Clapton.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who don't agree with any of his vaccine stances.
Speaker 1: But but but maybe felt touched by the song Tears
Speaker 1: in Heaven, you know what I mean. Like, so we
Speaker 1: do that all the time. We just don't think about
Speaker 1: it until it becomes somebody who's so seminal as Bill Cosby,
Speaker 1: where if I separate, if I go I can't watch
Speaker 1: the stuff anymore, and you go, I can, then it
Speaker 1: becomes a fight of you mad at me for because
Speaker 1: you think I don't understand and because you don't think
Speaker 1: I'm taking him seriously, And so for me, I'm like
Speaker 1: in the stock we can take the art seriously, but
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the other stuff. Well, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you this, man, this documentary, I can't imagine how
Speaker 1: hard and scary it was to make. It's no I
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, but but but honestly, I appreciate it
Speaker 1: just on a personal level because I think it gives
Speaker 1: people an opportunity to consume an extremely complicated story and
Speaker 1: a complicated legacy in one of the most nuanced ways possible.
Speaker 1: So thank you for that, thank you for putting yourself
Speaker 1: on the line, and just becase I want you to
Speaker 1: know if your career ends, I will I will like
Speaker 1: claim that I never knew year I appreciate what you did.
Speaker 1: I will and I will respect that. I will respect
Speaker 1: that this tape will be deleted. I understand. I'm in
Speaker 1: for realm in congratulations and thank you very much, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Ever, we need to talk about Cosby
Speaker 1: for me is January only on a showtime, The Daily
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Speaker 1: podcast