Bill Cosby and his rape allegations came to light when SNL’s Kenan Thompson took the stage at the University of Pittsburgh on Monday evening.
“Kenan was on for about an hour and the Bill Cosby stuff happened halfway through, I would say,” Jesse Irwin, who is the social media editor for the Pitt News, said in an interview with E! News. “He talked about how, growing up, Bill Cosby had been his hero. He was the first or one of the first clean black comedians. So as a kid, Kenan looked up to him.”
Apparently Kenan Thompson lost some of his admiration for Bill Cosby when the two worked together on the 2004 film Fat Albert.
“When he finally got to work with Cosby on Fat Albert, Kenan started talking about moments here and there that threw him,” Irwin said, adding that Thompson said Bill Cosby made sexually explicit jokes during filming. “Kenan recalled being thrown and being all like, ‘Hey, that’s not a very Cosby thing to say.'”
Thompson even referred to Bill Cosby as a ‘monster’ during Monday night’s show, but he was very respectful in his delivery of the remark.
Kenan Thompson reportedly calls Bill Cosby a "monster" at a college stand-up gig http://t.co/1YBF380TmD
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) April 14, 2015
“He said that if the allegations are true—and he made sure to mention Cosby hasn’t been found guilty of anything—that he’s a monster,” Irwin said.
Irwin also added that Kenan Thompson did a hilarious impersonation of Bill Cosby during his show.
It’s got to be hard for comedians to bring up Bill Cosby, given the very serious allegations that have plagued the actor and comedian for quite some time now. As with Eddie Murphy during the SNL 40 special–Murphy didn’t want to portray Cosby in an unfavorable light because he hasn’t been tried or convicted of these allegations–Kenan Thompson kept the references as lighthearted as possible and didn’t condemn Bill Cosby without knowing firsthand whether or not those allegations are true.