My Z News

LOS ANGELES — It was the cultural equivalent of an action hero walking away from an explosion without looking back: Hannibal Buress has spoken his piece about Bill Cosby, and seems content to leave the billowing mushroom cloud behind.

It is simply accepted as fact that Buress’ Oct. 16 standup routine was the tipping point in Cosby’s precipitous public downfall, an organically viral moment that, for reasons no one can quite explain, finally focused our attention on decades of sexual predation accusations while stirring up at least a half-dozen more. But if you thought the 31-year-old comedian would somehow seek to capitalize, or even continue to agitate for a reckoning with Cosby’s past, think again.

Most comics toil their whole lives in relative obscurity, waiting for something they do or say to catch fire. Buress got his moment by way of a crude cell phone video.

It’s a bit that Buress said he has done dozens of times over several months of public performances, but there was something about the timing of last month’s show in Cosby’s hometown of Philadelphia that piqued the Internet’s interest, emboldening more women to come forward and touching off a media firestorm.

Since then, Buress has turned down dozens of interview requests, including one from Mashable. He has largely avoided the topic on his active social media channels, and has not revisited the Cosby situation, at least not in a performance caught on tape, in his 15 standup appearances since.

Subtle clues in his Twitter feed hint that the Cosby story might still weigh on his mind, including this YouTube video (below) from Nov. 15, right around the time Cosby was refusing to address the gathering clouds during an interview with NPR.

“People have been asking me to comment,” he wrote, then proceeded to “review” the Cracker Barrel meal that he and his crew ate while traveling between venues in an RV. But at about 3:15 in, Buress, who is waxing poetic about the $20 keyboard he just bought, says, “Sometimes we fail in life. That’s OK.”

Then, a bleeped-out section.

People have been asking me to comment. here it is.

https://t.co/BZnZE7BMIZ

— Hannibal Buress (@hannibalburess) November 15, 2014

“Delete, delete! That’s an edit,” someone says off-screen while the entire crew laughs heartily.

Then, Buress: “That jump-cut is because we said something slanderous. And we won’t tell you who it is, but… don’t want to deal with that at all.”

“That” could be any number of things, including pressure Cosby’s attack dog lawyer Martin Singer, or the inevitable blowback from members of the public who still support Cosby. In fact, a week later, Buress seemed to acknowledge just that.

The only thing weirder than getting a death threat from a male bodybuilder/stripper on FB is seeing that you have one mutual friend.

— Hannibal Buress (@hannibalburess) November 21, 2014

And then hitting that one friend up and saying “Hey man, can you tell that dude to stop saying that’s he gonna kill me”

— Hannibal Buress (@hannibalburess) November 21, 2014

Attacks on Buress have been limited. Faizon Love, a comedian and actor who appeared in Elf and short-lived 2004 ABC series The Big House, went on a scathing, slur-laced Twitter rant last week against Buress and defending Cosby.

I’m gonna say it because Mr.Cosby can’t… Fuck them bitches and they mamas to!!! And the house nigga Hanibal Burress too

— Faizon Love (@FAIZONLOVE) November 19, 2014

So far, however, Love has been the exception perhaps in small part because Buress could not have known the impact of his words that night. He later said that wasn’t his intention at all.

“I didn’t want to do that. If I were going to do that, I would have done it on my own. It wasn’t my intention to make this part of a big discussion. It was just something I was doing at that venue right then,” Buress said in an interview with Howard Stern on Oct. 21, just five days after his fateful rant in Philly.

This is the only interview he has given since, a gig that was likely booked long before the viral moment. Working comedians know better than to cancel on Howard Stern.

For now, the Chicago native, who has written for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock and appeared in the summer comedy hit Neighbors as well as Broad City, has a full touring plate, starting with a Dec. 5 engagement in New Orleans, followed by Dallas the next night and Houston the night after that. In fact, Buress has a whopping 26 North American dates on the calendar through mid-April, a tour that has him criss-crossing the map with only short breaks along the way.

No rest for the guy who came at the king.

window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement(‘script’);js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};
_msla(“//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”,”twitter_jssdk”);

Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/11/25/hannibal-buress-bill-cosby/