Hannibal Buress: The Cosby Bit, and the Comedian Behind It
A few minutes of a 2014 Philadelphia set reignited the allegations against Bill Cosby. But Buress was a brilliant, unhurried stand-up long before that night, and the bit makes more sense once you know his style.
Hannibal Buress is an American stand-up comedian and actor from Chicago, known for a slow, wry, almost conversational delivery, for writing on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, and for playing Lincoln on Broad City. He is also the comedian whose October 2014 stand-up routine in Philadelphia about Bill Cosby went viral and brought decades-old sexual assault allegations back to the centre of American public life.
This page covers that routine in detail: what he said (in summary), why it spread and what followed. Then it covers the rest of a career that deserves to be known for more than one bit.
The 2014 Cosby routine
On October 16, 2014, Buress played the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia, Cosby's hometown. Partway through the set he turned to Cosby. The bit was only a few minutes long. Its argument was simple: Cosby had spent years publicly scolding young Black Americans about their clothes, their language and their behaviour, while he himself had been accused of rape by numerous women. Buress said, in effect, that Cosby had no standing to lecture anyone, and told the audience that if they didn't believe him, they should search for the allegations online when they got home.
He had been doing versions of the bit on the road for a while. The difference that night was that a writer from Philadelphia magazine recorded it and posted the clip. Within days it had been viewed millions of times and was being covered by national news outlets.
Why it landed
The allegations themselves were not new. Several women had gone public years before, and Cosby had settled a civil suit in 2006. But they had never broken through his public image as "America's Dad". Buress's routine did what reporting hadn't: it put the allegations in a short, shareable, unforgettable form, and it framed them around hypocrisy, which made the gap between the image and the accusations impossible to ignore. The bit worked as comedy because of Buress's characteristic tone. He didn't shout. He sounded puzzled that nobody else seemed bothered.
What happened next
- In the weeks after the clip spread, dozens of women came forward publicly with accounts of being drugged or assaulted by Cosby, and his planned TV projects were cancelled.
- In December 2015 prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, charged him over a 2004 assault on Andrea Constand.
- His first trial, in 2017, ended in a mistrial. At a retrial in April 2018 he was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault, and that September he was sentenced to three to ten years in prison.
- In June 2021 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that a previous prosecutor's promise not to charge him should have been honoured. He was released. Cosby has always denied the allegations.
Buress has generally been reluctant to take credit. He has said he didn't expect the clip to have that effect, that the women who spoke up were the ones who mattered, and that he didn't want to become a symbol. It's still the clearest example in modern American comedy of a stand-up routine changing a public conversation. Our essay on comedy and social change looks at what that kind of impact does and doesn't mean.
Chicago beginnings
Buress was born in Chicago on February 4, 1983, and grew up on the city's West Side. He started doing stand-up while studying at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the early 2000s, then worked the Chicago open-mic and showcase circuit. Our guide to the Chicago comedy scene covers the rooms that shaped that generation.
His style was formed there: an unhurried, almost mumbled delivery, a fondness for strange real-life incidents, and an instinct for repeating a phrase until its absurdity takes over. He is often funniest when he seems mildly inconvenienced, a man trying to make sense of a world that keeps doing silly things to him.
New York writing rooms: SNL and 30 Rock
Buress moved to New York in the late 2000s and was hired as a writer on Saturday Night Live for the 2009–10 season. Like a number of alt comedians before him, he found the show's process a poor fit and stayed only one year. He then joined the writing staff of 30 Rock, where he also made memorable on-screen appearances. His debut album, My Name Is Hannibal, came out in 2010.
Specials
| Special | Year | Where | In brief |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Furnace | 2012 | Comedy Central | The first hour; a clear showcase of the deadpan storytelling. |
| Live from Chicago | 2014 | Comedy Central | Taped at the Vic Theatre in his hometown; looser and more confident. |
| Comedy Camisado | 2016 | Netflix | His first Netflix hour, released two years after the Cosby clip. |
| Miami Nights | 2020 | YouTube (free) | Built around his December 2017 arrest in Miami; the charges were dropped. |
He also made the documentary Hannibal Takes Edinburgh about taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe, and hosted the short-lived Comedy Central series Why? with Hannibal Buress (2015).
Broad City, The Eric Andre Show and acting
Buress became a familiar face on two very different cult shows. On Broad City (Comedy Central, 2014–2019) he played Lincoln Rice, Ilana's easygoing dentist boyfriend, and his relaxed delivery was a perfect counterweight to the leads' chaos. On Adult Swim's The Eric Andre Show, he was the deadpan co-host who sat calmly amid Andre's destruction, often looking as if he had wandered onto the set by accident. Both roles used the same skill: underreacting so precisely that it becomes the joke.
His film work includes Neighbors (2014), Daddy's Home (2015), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Tag (2018).
Why Buress matters
The Cosby set is a landmark, but Buress's broader contribution is a style. In an era of high-energy stand-up and tightly engineered punchlines, he showed that a comic could win a room by sounding like he was barely trying, and that alt comedy's love of the shaggy and the specific could work in theatres, not just bar back rooms. His underplaying influenced a lot of comics who came after him, and on The Eric Andre Show it helped make one of the most chaotic shows on television watchable. For more on comedy that tangles with real-world wrongdoing, see our essay on comedy ethics.
Frequently asked questions
What did Hannibal Buress say about Bill Cosby in 2014?
During an October 16, 2014, show in Philadelphia, Buress criticised Cosby for lecturing young Black people about how to behave while himself facing multiple rape allegations, and told the audience to look the allegations up online. A clip of the bit went viral within days.
Did Hannibal Buress's routine lead to Bill Cosby's conviction?
Not directly. The viral clip brought decades-old allegations back into the news, and dozens of women then spoke publicly. Cosby was charged in Pennsylvania in 2015 and convicted in 2018, but the conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021 on procedural grounds. Cosby has consistently denied the allegations.
Had Hannibal Buress done the Cosby bit before Philadelphia?
Yes. He had been performing versions of it on the road before the Philadelphia show. What changed in October 2014 was that someone filmed it and the clip spread online.
Who does Hannibal Buress play in Broad City?
He plays Lincoln Rice, a laid-back dentist and Ilana's on-and-off boyfriend, across the show's run on Comedy Central from 2014 to 2019.
What is Hannibal Buress's latest special?
As of 2026 his most recent full stand-up special is Miami Nights, released free on YouTube in 2020. It is built around his December 2017 arrest in Miami, after which the charges were dropped.