Judd Apatow Thinks Bill Cosby Should Be In Jail
Judd Apatow was a guest on yesterday’s episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. Maron invited Apatow to call in because Maron is now having second thoughts over the Bill Cosby scandal going on. At first, Maron wasn’t sure about his feelings on the sexual assault allegations against Cosby. But after Cosby recently made light of the situation during a stand up performance in Canada where he made a joke to a woman in the audience about not having a drink around him, that changed. Maron feels he has every right to talk about it, now that Cosby has brought it into the realm of comedy.
He had Judd Apatow as a guest because of Judd’s consistent anti-Cosby crusade that he’s been tweeting about. Maron talked to Apatow about why he’s so adamant that venues no longer hire Cosby to perform. He said, “One thing I do know is I’m not comfortable with him running around the country doing stand up like nothing’s happening. And I guess on some level, I feel like I can’t be a part of solving that many problems in the world. I do my best to get involved where I can be effective. But this is our neighborhood. And I do feel like there’s someone running around who should be in a different type of building right now.”
Here are some of the highlights
Apatow compared Cosby to another comic who was convicted on sexual assault charges in the late 90’s. “You know, there was a comedian named Vince Champ. Remember him? He was arrested because they looked at this college touring schedule and in many of those cities he was in on those dates, people had been raped. He’s in jail for life right now.”
Apatow told Maron he would absolutely like to see Cosby in jail. He also talked about why people don’t want to acknowledge the accusations against Cosby. “…I think that when celebrities commit heinous crimes, people don’t want to let go of their love for their work and their lifelong relationship with them. If we admit that Cosby did this, we not allowed to enjoy everything that made us so happy. And I guess, in some primal way, we don’t want to let go of those memories and those feelings. And I think ultimately, we have to decide that it’s way more important that he is dealt with in the same manner as anyone else is who commits those types of crimes. And he shouldn’t be performing. Hey, he got two standing ovations last night. And he’s booked through the Spring. Are people going to book him again? Maybe they will if we don’t complain about it.”
Apatow compared Cosby Michael Jackson: “Well, the people that don’t want to believe it, it’s like the same reason why people don’t want to believe that Michael Jackson ever did anything with kids. They just love “Thriller” and they don’t want to give it up.”
One thing that amazes Apatow about Cosby is that he won’t offer an alibi. “Well, he certainly not saying this. ‘On that date when they said I was at the Playboy Club, I was in Europe shooting a movie’. He doesn’t have a response that’s specific to any of the 33 people. And if you didn’t do it, you’d probably be pretty pissed off. And you know what? The timeline wouldn’t match up. So, it is a Vince Champ’s situation in that way. He doesn’t have an alibi for anyone of these people. And you only need one of these people to be telling the truth for him to deserve to be in prison.”
Apatow feels he understands why the women involved wouldn’t come forward at the time because of how menacing Cosby could be. He said, “I think what people have trouble facing is what would it feel like to be standing with Bill Cosby, you take a drink of something or you take a pill that he told you was something that it wasn’t and you slowing start passing out and you’re looking at him and you’re thinking ‘What in God’s name is about to happen?’ It is bone chilling. It’s a horror movie. And I don’t think people really want to close their eyes and imagine what it’s like as you’re going unconscious to know that somebody is about to abuse you in that way. And then you won’t be able to complain because he could say ‘What? We were partying. What? We were drinking, doing pills’. It’s a set up to make the person unable to complain.”
On why this is not a money issue: “Well, I think a lot of people who want to get into acting…and a lot of people he preyed upon were wannabe actresses or actresses. Even if he did it, they think complaining about it probably ends my career. People will think that I’m trouble. That’s why he always went for the same type of person, for the vast majority of the time….Even now, these people in their 60s and their 70s and most all of them don’t want any money. They’re just trying to be honest. They’re humiliated. I mean there’s nothing fun about being 70 years old and having to go on CNN and having to say Bill Cosby raped you. Like that’s not fun. It brands you in a way. It takes an enormous amount of courage to stand up and talk about it. But I think that people like to think ‘Oh, they’re all going to get rich.’ Believe me, most of these people aren’t getting rich this. Might a few people get remunerated in some way? Sure. Do they deserve it? Absolutely. That’s why people sue people. If you do something to someone and it messes with their life and it messes with psychology and causes them great pain, he should pay those people.”
On others in Hollywood staying quiet on the Cosby issue: “Well, I think it’s the path of least resistance. Nobody wants to stand up for anything that can’t help them in some way. So, what are the chances that Bill Cosby pulls out a date book and shows that he was not in those locations for all 33 of those women? It’s zero. So even in a situation where Bill Cosby clearly did it, nobody wants to risk the idea for the one in a billion chances that they’re wrong, that they’d get in trouble. But the truth is, if I was raped, I don’t expect courts to need 33 witnesses to convict my rapist. He’d be in jail if one person spoke up and said this happened. So, we’re so far past the normal bar for proof. So, everybody in Hollywood, for the most part, there’s a few people who are standing up like Rosie O’Donnell. There’s some comedians that are standing up. But there aren’t very important figures in our business who say, ‘You know what? This isn’t a racial issue. We don’t want people like this in our community. This is wrong. People who commit these acts should be in prison. And I believe these women.’ There’s 33 women. Go on the computer and there’s videos of every one of these women in great detail, explaining what happened. It is bone chilling, the amount of detail that they remember. We’re way beyond the point of like ‘Did this happen?’ or ‘Did this not happen?’ It’s just certain statutes of limitations are allowing him to avoid dealing with this.”
Apatow told Maron about a personal story he heard about Bill Cosby as someone to avoid. “I have a relative who was working on a TV show and Bill Cosby was the guest star and before he arrived everyone was like, ‘She needs to stay away from Cosby. Make sure he doesn’t see her. Because his reputation preceded him for decades and decades.”
On Cosby’s contributions to civil rights: ” I think part of it is the racial aspect of it. Yes, he did things that were very important in the civil rights struggle. And he did great things, but he also did some things that were as evil as you can do on Earth. And there’s a lot of great people who fight for civil rights and we don’t need him. We don’t need his legacy. There are a lot of other people who we could look up to and we can say, you know he did great things and he also did evil things. But the fact that he did great things doesn’t mean you ignore this type of violence.”
What Cosby should do now. “Well, you just don’t want him having a blast, that’s how I look at it. I don’t want him running around getting standing ovations. At the very least, go in your mansion and disappear for the rest of your life. He shouldn’t be rewarded and applauded for raping that many women. That’s a huge commitment to rape, by the way. I mean we’re talking about this starting in the mid-60s. That’s a full commitment for four decades. Who knows what the real numbers are?”
Apatow summed up his feelings about the Cosby scandal, saying, “I think it’s the saddest, most bizarre, in a way Shakespearean episode that’s ever happened in show business.”
Marc Maron’s discussion with Judd Apatow can be heard on Maron’s site at WTFPod.com
