Judd Apatow: The Rolling Stone Interview
You’re active on Twitter, and one of the ways you’ve used it is to hammer Bill Cosby repeatedly. Why do you think the sexual-assault charges finally stuck against him, in the realm of public opinion, in a way that they didn’t stick with, say, Woody Allen, when his daughter Dylan asserted repeatedly that he molested her?
I think people don’t seem to want to believe women who are attacked. I don’t know if it’s that we just don’t want to believe terrible things happen, especially when people we love are accused — like, How can my favorite person in the world do it? It’s much easier not to believe the accuser. With Cosby, for a while people were thinking, “They’re all gold diggers.” And at some point enough women came forward that the world knows this happened and that he is clearly some sort of sociopath. With Woody Allen — you can’t compare all the cases, but the sheer numbers effect it. It’s very sad when someone like Dylan comes forward and doesn’t get the level of support she deserves, but it might be easier to try to ignore her than it is to ignore all the women who accused Cosby.
People say, “Separate the art from the artist.” They want to watch Annie Hall and Bill Cosby’s old routines and still enjoy them. Can you do that separating?
No. Not at all. Some people say you have to separate it, then they list everybody who’s done terrible things who made art. I guess that’s an argument you could make. The Cosby thing I took seriously because I know one of the victims, who is not going to come forward. I had a personal connection to it, where somebody that I care about said that’s exactly how it went down. Obviously you have to make sure things are true. Everything everyone says isn’t true. But if you don’t believe women or take their accusations very, very seriously, women will not speak up. And if women don’t speak up more women will be raped. So it’s really all about preventing other people from getting hurt, because Cosby’s on tour — ignoring all of the victims is a signal to other victims that when you speak up, people will not take care of you and do something about it.
Judd Apatow: The Rolling Stone Interview, Page 11 of 16