Bill Maher: I’ve Known Bill Cosby Was a ‘Monster’ Since 1983

Bill Maher wants you to know that’s he’s never liked Bill Cosby. And not just because he was convicted of sexual assault, but also because he never thought he was a very good comedian. This is despite the fact, he revealed in a new podcast episode, that he has known Cosby was a sexual predator for more than four decades.

When comedian Paul Reiser told Maher that there was “never” anyone better at stand-up comedy than Cosby, Maher interrupted him to say, “I disagree, but go ahead.”

The Mad About You star was attempting to tell a story about his first interaction with Cosby when he was just starting out as a comic, but it quickly got derailed by Maher explaining, “I was never a fan... separate from the rapist thing, just as a comic.”

“Because I can separate things, and I think people should, I don’t care,” Maher continued, explaining that he has no problem listening to R. Kelly or Michael Jackson music. “The music didn’t rape anyone,” he added.

“Even before the unpleasantness,” Maher said, employing a particularly sunny euphemism for rape, “just as a comic, I never thought Bill Cosby was funny.” Jerry Seinfeld “feels the same way,” he added, alluding to comments the comedian made in 2017 about his ability to separate art from artist.

Later in the conversation, when Reiser complained that people might try to “cancel” Mozart because he was a “prick,” Maher stopped him.

“There’s pricks and then there’s monsters,” Maher said. “Cosby: Monster.”

He then told a story about when he was filming one of his first movie roles in the film D.C. Cab in 1983—one year before The Cosby Show premiered—and spoke to a woman who had worked with Cosby on a previous project.

That person told Maher, “You know, for the first three weeks he tried to f--- me, and when that wasn’t going to happen he made the rest of my life on that movie a living hell.”

“And I always f---ing hated him ever since,” Maher continued. “And the bad news that came later maybe wasn’t so shocking to me.”

Cosby allegedly raped or sexually assaulted more than 60 women, with at least 20 of the alleged incidents occurring after 1983. He was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018 but that conviction was overturned due to a complex legal technicality three years later and he currently remains a free man at 87 years old.