I hate that it’s a thing. I hate he’s being accused of it.

I hate that a hero of mine, a fixture of my childhood, allegedly has this side of him.

I hate that we live in a society where, if these allegations are true, something this horrible can just be hushed up and brushed under and paid off. That’s horrible.

I hate that when there’s smoke, there’s fire. 15 allegations are WAY too many to say, “These are just people clinging to the fame train.”

I hate that I can’t rightly say this man is a hero of mine anymore. Because I still really, really want to.

I hate that I had to take a framed record of his off my wall last night.

I hate that he hasn’t just come out and said, “No, I didn’t do that.”

I hate that he hasn’t said that, because I think deep down, he is a man who won’t lie, and he believes he has some ounce of integrity. Amid all these other (awful) things, that he won’t just lie. That he knows he did it, and even though he’s capable of these (AWFUL) things, he’s still not capable of outright lying about it.

And I hate that part of me would forgive him if he did just come out and say, “No, I didn’t do that,” in the face of 15 different women accusing him of sexual assault.

I hate that in the released footage of the AP interview, his response to a request for comment on the allegations was, “No comment, and I want to make sure you don’t ever show this footage to anybody.”

That’s not what someone who didn’t do it says. That’s what someone says when they’ve compartmentalized the rape part of their brain and the honesty part of their brain. That’s what someone says when they know they did it but still think they can maintain some level of integrity.

“Hush up, let’s let this blow over.”

Just, fuck. This is Bill Cosby. This is the guy you can’t be mad at, who was the model of achieving mindblowing creative success and still holding onto every ounce of your integrity as a human being. Love his ideas or hate them, the guy (outwardly) showed he never gave up on what he believed in. Never gave into showbiz. Never stopped being himself.

I wanted to believe that.

I grew up listening to “Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow …Right!”. It played near-constantly for a year from my parents’ CD player when I was in middle school. It shaped my sense of humor as much as Monty Python or Steve Martin or All That or SNL. When I saw it on vinyl in a record shop when I was older, I bought it immediately, and it was the first comedy record I framed and hung on my wall.

It sucks to lose an idol like this. It sucks to see they’re capable of terrible, awful, awfulthings.

It sucks to see someone you’ve held up as a model of integrity as a performer to not be able to say, “No, I have never raped anyone in my life.”

I hate all this Bill Cosby stuff.

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Sean Curry is a writer and improviser in New York City. You can view more of his writing at his website, or follow him on Twitter at @seancurry1.

And if you came here from reddit, he’s u/seancurry1. I know, he’s very creative.