Cosby's Walk Of Fame Star Repaired After Being Vandalized
HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — The word "rapist" was written this week on Bill Cosby's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and workers spent part of Friday morning cleaning and refurbishing the marker.
KNX 1070's Ron Kilgore reports the word was written three times on the star, which is located on the south side of the 6900 block of Hollywood Boulevard.
Officials at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce said they were unclear when the incident took place, but Twitter user Josh Keown (@JoshKeown) posted a photo of it on Tuesday evening.
KCAL9's Randy Paige spoke with Keown on Friday as the star was being scrubbed and polished.
"I was like, 'Am I really seeing this right now? You know, is this really happening?' I took a photo of it, of course, and put it on my Twitter," said Keown, who saw the damage after stepping out of a hotel in Hollywood on Tuesday. "And I was standing around just for about five minutes afterwards, and I noticed a ton of people coming up and taking photos with it. It was pretty shocking actually.
"We all grew up on 'The Cosby Show,' so this news is tough to take for us all," Keown added.
On Friday morning the graffiti was removed from the star, and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce would like it to stay that way. It issued a written statement, noting, "The Hollywood Walk of Fame is an institution celebrating the positive contributions of the inductees. When people are unhappy with one of our honorees, we would hope that they would project their anger in more positive ways then to vandalize a California State landmark."
Most of the people who walked by Cosby's star on Friday didn't notice his name, but those who stopped to speak with Paige reflected on the man, his career and the scandal that surrounds him.
"There have been so many allegations against him that at some point you have to really wonder if those aren't true," said one woman.
"As I was a young man growing up he helped me through a lot of things, so for the people that's trying to tear up his name, shame on them, because Bill has done wonderful work in his life," said Walter Harris..
"While I'm extremely upset that these allegations might be correct, I also don't intend on forgetting about a long and amazing career that he had," said Christina Howard.
Unofficial "Hollywood Ambassador" Greg Donovan saw it earlier Friday morning and tried to avoid discussing the Cosby scandal with onlookers.
"Tourists were asking me...'what happened, who did this?' and even from China, 'Who was he, what happened?'", said Donovan. "I'm diplomatic, I didn't want to get into the details of the controversy right now."
In recent weeks, dozens of women have claimed Cosby drugged and raped them over the last few decades. At least one civil lawsuit has been filed by a Riverside County woman who accused the 77-year-old actor of molesting her at the Playboy Mansion in the mid-1970's.
Cosby has never been criminally charged in any case, but a civil suit was settled in 2006 regarding an incident with a woman two years before.
Cosby has not specifically addressed the accusations made against him but tweeted at several celebrities early this week thanking them for their support.
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