Bill Cosby countersues accusers, says rape charges caused him “emotional distress”

Last we checked in with TV father figure-turned-cultural lightning rod Bill Cosby, he had been dumped by his agent, stripped of several honorary degrees, and had his biography pulled from shelves by its publisher. They even took down his statue at Disneyland. But apparently Cosby didn’t learn a damn thing from all of this, as according to The Hollywood Reporter he’s now countersuing seven women who sued him in relation to their charges of sexual assault against the comedian.

See, the statute of limitations on criminal prosecution of these cases expired long ago, so last December one of the more than 50 women who have accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them filed a lawsuit against the comedian, alleging that he defamed her by publicly denying her claim. Six more have joined the suit since then, and now Cosby is attempting to use their tactic against them by countersuing them for defamation, namely for tarnishing his “honorable legacy and reputation” by “willfully, maliciously, and falsely accusing Mr. Cosby of multi-decade-old purported sexual misconduct.”

The suit goes on to say that not only did these mean old accusers hurt Cosby’s feelings, they also damaged Cosby’s career by causing him to lose the deals he was negotiating with NBC and Netflix when this story (re-)entered the cultural spotlight last fall. “Falsely accusing another of sexual assault is morally repugnant and subjected Mr. Cosby to severe emotional distress from public ridicule, shame, and contempt of such a nature that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it,” the countersuit claims. Emotional distress stemming from feelings of shame after someone maliciously takes advantage of you? If only there were someone—or maybe even a group of people—who understood what that felt like…