The long and disheartening slog through shattered TV-dad ideals and the ugliness of rape culture that are the Bill Cosby sexual-assault allegations has been going on for so long now that it’s important not to forget the point, which is that Bill Cosby is an unrepentant sexual predator. Well, here’s a reminder: Vulture reports that Cosby is now asking a court for “sanctions” against Andrea Constad, the woman to whom he paid a settlement in 2005 after she sued him in civil court.
Anyway, developments like that—too many to count, almost—continue to unfold, but some people simply refuse to believe that Cosby is awful until he says so under oath, which might happen sooner than you think. You certainly wouldn’t get that impression from his biography, which has been heavily criticized for glossing over the allegations against Cosby. (The book came out in September 2014, about a month before comedian Hannibal Buress brought the charges back into the public consciousness by calling Cosby a rapist in his stand-up act, but, again, the suit mentioned in the previous paragraph took place in 2005.)
Yesterday, we reported that publisher Simon & Schuster had removed celebrity endorsements of Cosby by the likes of Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman from the book’s jacket. Now, The Hollywood Reporter says that Simon & Schuster will not be releasing the book in paperback, and the hardcover and e-book editions of the biography will not be updated to include information about the dozens of allegations that have been leveled against Cosby in the past year. Author Mark Whitaker had previously promised to include information about the charges in future editions of the book, but now that there won’t be any future editions, he’s off the hook, we guess. The current editions, meanwhile, just dramatically increased in value as grim collector’s items.
Speaking of collector’s items, art collectors who find Gacy clowns passé might want to think about getting into Cosbys, as the Smithsonian is reportedly under pressure to remove a collection of art donated by the comedian and his wife, Camille.