(NEXSTAR) — Comedian Bill Cosby says he’s planning a comeback comedy tour in 2023, over a year after his sexual assault conviction was overturned — and weeks after five women filed a new sexual assault lawsuit against the fallen star.
In a Dec. 28 interview on “WGH Talk,” the 85-year-old Cosby told host Scott Spears he’d be returning to the stage, “because there’s so much fun to be had in this storytelling that I do.” Andrew Wyatt, Cosby’s representative, confirmed to Variety that Cosby is “looking at spring/summer” for the potential tour.
The former “The Cosby Show” star has been out of prison since June 2021, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction in the drugging and sexual assault of Temple University employee Andrea Constand.
The guilty verdict was overturned due to a technicality wherein Cosby had been promised by a then-district attorney he could testify honestly without self-incrimination. According to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a later district attorney did not uphold this agreement and Cosby’s testimony was used against him.
While Cosby has kept a low profile in the year since, the emergence of the new lawsuit earlier this month refocused attention on the actor. As reported by Associated Press, the lawsuit alleges Cosby abused the five plaintiffs between the 1960s and 1990s.
Over the summer, a Los Angeles County jury ruled that Cosby sexually abused Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 years old in 1975. While Cosby denies the allegation and Wyatt said at that time that they would appeal the verdict, Cosby was ordered to pay Huth $500,000.
Cosby told Spears on Dec. 28 he feels he’ll be able to “be the Bill Cosby that my audience knows me to be” going into the tour.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
