8 Comedians Who Received Serious Death Threats For Their Jokes
3. Hannibal Buress
Who knew there were so many vigilant Bill Cosby supporters? Probably not Hannibal Buress, who felt the wrath of Dr. Huxtable's acolytes after he went after Cosby for the heap of rape allegations being thrown the good doctor's way. Hannibal Buress was one of the first people to go after Bill Cosby for the allegations--which had been public record for almost a decade, mind you--with a simple, but killer bit that outed the comedy legend as a hypocrite:
"Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the '80s. I can talk down to you 'cause I had a successful sitcom. Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches. I don't curse on stage! But yeah, you're a rapist, so..."
At the time, it was considered a controversial comment. But that was before dozens more women started coming forward about their own experiences with Cosby. You could say that Buress actually helped serve justice by reminding the public that their former hero wasn't as good of a guy as he proclaims himself to be. Some have even called him a "feminist hero." But the sudden explosion in popularity also came with a cost, as he found himself the target of Cosby defenders. One such acolyte, a male bodybuilder/stripper, sent him a death threat via Facebook. But Buress, being the cool customer he is, talked about the incident on Jimmy Kimmel's late night talk show:
The weirdest thing about getting a death threat from a male body builder slash stripper on Facebook is when you click on his profile and see that you have one mutual friend. And then having to hit your friend up, and saying, Hey man, can you tell your buddy to stop saying that hes going to murder me?
