In the cover feature for the new issue of Esquire, Chelsea Handler goes into detail about an incident that occurred a decade ago in which Bill Cosby invited her to his hotel suite in Atlantic City. Fearing the worst, and because she didn’t know him, Handler brought along three other people to the “meeting”. It wasn’t until later, after allegations of the comedian surfaced, that she began to suspect that she could have been one of the women accusing him of rape.
Here’s the quote from Esquire:
I was in Atlantic City playing, doing stand-up, and he was doing stand-up in Atlantic City in the same hotel, and at like three o’clock in the afternoon, someone from the hotel came down and said, “Oh, you know, Mr. Cosby would really like to meet you up in his hotel suite.” And I thought, That’s really weird. This was like ten years ago. And I said, That’s really weird. I don’t want to go alone. I go, I don’t know him. So the three guys I was with—thank God these guys were with me….Then my friend texted me the other day saying, “Do you remember that night we went up to, or that afternoon we went up to Bill Cosby’s and you were so freaked out you made us come with you?” And I said, Yeah, and he said, “Hello! You could’ve been one of his victims if we weren’t there.” And I went, “Oh my gosh …” Yeah, so yeah, he’s guilty.
It must be reiterated that no one knows how Bill Cosby would have acted if Chelsea Handler had gone into that room alone. But that’s kind of the problem.