Bill Cosby Considering Return to Touring in 2023

Bill Cosby is eyeing a return to the comedy stage after a sexual assault conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in June 2021.

On Wednesday, the comedian and onetime TV star hinted at a return to touring in 2023 while being interviewed by Scott Spears on his WGH Talk radio show. “Yes. Yes because there’s so much fun to be had in this storytelling that I do. Years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I found it was better to say it after I write it,” he said during the interview.

Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the controversial comedian was considering a return to the stand-up comedy stage next year. “We’re looking at getting back out here around Spring/Summer of 2023,” Wyatt wrote in an email.

Despite his sexual assault conviction, Cosby was freed after serving two years of a three- to 10-year sentence in a state prison after the court ruled a “non-prosecution agreement” the actor struck with a previous prosecutor should have prevented him from being charged in a case that stemmed from a 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand.

In March 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court without comment ruled that it would not review Cosby’s sexual assault case, which ended a two-decade legal drama and left the comic a free man, even as his reputation remained in tatters after his earlier conviction and imprisonment.

The TV star, now 85, last toured with his comedy act in 2015 across North America, performances that drew protests and included cancellations after around two dozen women came forward to claim Cosby sexually assaulted them decades earlier.

At the time, the comedian had yet to be charged in the wake of those allegations and protested his innocence through his lawyers. Cosby was arrested in the Constand case Dec. 30, 2015, just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired, and went on trial in the criminal case in 2017.