Bill Cosby has been cut from documentary film “Painted Down” after a leaked deposition from a 2005 sex assault lawsuit revealed the embattled comedian had admitted buying sedatives to give to women he wanted to sleep with.
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“Cosby is no longer attached to the project,” said the film’s producer, Nonie Robinson.
Robinson also cited Whoopi Goldberg and CAA’s recent stand against the 77-year-old comedian as one of their reasons to remove him from the project.
Robinson added that it was the right thing to do in light of the recent court deposition being made public.
More than two dozen women have said that the actor sexually assaulted them, but Cosby has denied the accusations. “The View” co-host Goldberg, who had been standing behind Cosby’s until proven guilty and also appears in “Painted Down“, last week changed her tune, saying that “all of the information that’s out there kind of points to guilt”.
In Cosby’s Painted Down interview, he recalled realizing a white man had been hired to portray his stunts on the television show I Spy, but in black face. I went over, and there was this white stuntman…. Black, black, black-black on the neck. As it turned out, there were few black stuntmen in Hollywood at the time, something Cosby didn’t realize, and this was the first time a lead actor had ever spoken out against what was a widespread practice. The Cosby Show is still playing on Netflix and Hulu, but that hardly counts as an active project.
That protest was credited with helping to launch the Black Stuntmen’s Association in 1967, and for many years a glowing tribute to Crosby was posted to the organisation’s website.
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Founded in 1967 and honored with an NAACP Image Award for integrating the stunt industry, the BSA has decided, however, not to sanitize Cosby’s history with the organization.
