Since all the news stories written about Ghost Dad-turned-Disgraced-Dad Bill Cosby’s alleged crimes haven’t included enough childhood-tarnishing words or phrases so far, the universe has decided to go ahead and add Walt Disney World into the mix.
You see, a bust of Cosby has stood in the Florida park’s Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame Plaza for years, smiling down at parkgoers with an expression that might previously been described as beaming, but which now, legally, must be categorized as a leer. But no longer: in the wake of the unsealing of court testimony from 2005, in which Cosby admitted to purchasing Quaaludes in order to give them to women he wanted to have sex with, a spokesperson for the park confirmed that the statue would be removed tonight after the park was closed, forcefully tearing down the image of Cosby as a genial, fatherly figure, because apparently theme parks are just like the rest of us.
The statue’s removal was initially prompted by a petition circulated by Brittany Gavrilova, the niece of one of Cosby’s alleged victims, who said she wanted to be able to visit the park “without having that difficult encounter.” It’s unclear what her reaction will be in the unlikely event that Disney replaces the statue with the Naked Cosby that a Florida high-school student designed to replace it back in February, which doesn’t seem like it’d be much easier.