D. L. Hughley is sharing his thoughts on Mo’Nique’s call to boycott Netflix, Roseanne Barr’s firing by ABC and Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction, including a “confrontation” he had with Cosby over using the N-word on stage.
In an appearance Sunday night on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Hughley recalled a dust-up he had with the TV legend and now-convicted sex offender.
“With everything surrounding Bill Cosby’s trial, do you think he’ll actually go to jail?” Andy Cohen asked during a game of “Stand Up or Stand Down.”
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Hughley didn’t miss a beat. He said “yes,” then recalled exchanging words with Cosby while hosting a radio show.
“I was a specific type of comedian, and Bill Cosby had a different perspective of what comedy should be,” Hughley said.
“One time, I was hosting a radio show, and he called in to do press, and I didn’t wanna to do it because I was like, ‘I know we’re gonna get into it,’” Hughley explained. “And so finally, he had been so rude to the people around me that I said, ‘Mr. Cosby, what did you want?’ He says, ‘Who is this?’ I say, ‘This is D.L. Hughley.’ He says, ‘D.L. Hughley? You say the N-word.’ I say, ‘With all due respect, I say the N-word, but nobody wakes up with their panties on backwards.’ So we had this huge confrontation.”
Hughley said he respects Cosby for changing comedy, but he’s still a “rapist.”
“I think that he was a brilliant man, but I think that you can be incredibly brilliant and a rapist,” he added. “I don’t think that those things are mutually exclusive, and we got into it.”
Hughley sat down with Cohen to discuss his new book How Not to Get Shot: And Other Advice From White People, but he also got candid about fellow comedians, Roseanne and Mo’Nique.
He called ABC’s decision to fire Roseanne for her racist tweets “disingenuous.”
“They hired her in the first place,” he said. “Listen, I thought Roseanne should have got fired ’cause she shouldn’t have got hired. But once you take that ride, let’s go for the whole ride. I think bigots need jobs, too. I just hate when they blame it on stuff. ‘I hate black people ’cause I took a sleeping pill.’ You hate black people ’cause you hate black people.”
As for Mo’Nique’s call for fans to boycott Netflix because she didn’t feel the streaming company offered her enough money to do a stand-up special, Hughley said no thanks.
“I recently did a Netflix special, and I had signed to do it — and after Mo’nique made these claims, I called my manager and I go, ‘Wait, how much am I making?’”
He added that he doesn’t think it’s right for comedians to ask fans to dump the streaming giant.
“I ultimately think that you can’t ask somebody to boycott Netflix when you’re making a half a million dollars in an hour, and they’re trying to figure out how to get the $13 to pay for their Netflix,” he said. “I just think, show ’em what you got, and then we’ll see what happens. Ultimately, a special’s all about showing people that you still got the ability to make people laugh.”