--- title: Bill Cosby Rape Allegations: Seth Meyers, Conan O'Brien Jokes description: Seth Meyer's four-minute sketch carefully explores the challenges of making light of the rape allegations against Bill Cosby canonical: https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-21T15:52:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:38.627Z og:title: Watch Seth Meyers Build the Perfect Bill Cosby Joke (That Isn’t Really a Joke) og:description: It carefully explores the challenges of making light of the rape allegations against Bill Cosby og:url: https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b26c9ad467ae9a2/69876a3ce20a874f5aa83843/screen-shot-2014-11-21-at-10-20-04-am.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2014-11-21 at 10.20.04 AM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Seth Meyers Build the Perfect Bill Cosby Joke (That Isn’t Really a Joke) twitter:description: It carefully explores the challenges of making light of the rape allegations against Bill Cosby twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b26c9ad467ae9a2/69876a3ce20a874f5aa83843/screen-shot-2014-11-21-at-10-20-04-am.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Seth Meyers Make the Perfect Bill Cosby Joke ## Video: See Bill Cosby's Only Public Comment on Rape Allegations [Watch (HLS stream): See Bill Cosby's Only Public Comment on Rape Allegations](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5EZrnNYI.m3u8) (4:13)  _Published 2014-11-20. See Bill Cosby's Only Public Comment on Rape Allegations_ by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Nov 21, 2014 3:52 PM UTC  by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Nov 21, 2014 3:52 PM UTC Late night TV hosts have (understandably) been hesitant to make jokes about the growing [sexual assault allegations ](http://time.com/3592547/bill-cosby-rape-allegations-timeline/)against comedian, sweater enthusiast and Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby. But on Thursday’s episode of _Late Night_, Seth Meyers decided to tackle the topic with something that was more of an elaborate meta-joke than a simple, straightforward quip. A planted audience member begins pestering Meyers about his take on the scandal and eventually gets fellow audience members to begin chanting “Bill Cosby joke! Bill Cosby joke! Bill Cosby joke!” Meyers eventually gives in, and the audience member soon realizes that he had, uh, misunderstood what the whole scandal was even about. The four-minute sketch becomes more of a general commentary on why it’s not a good idea for comedians to make light of this issue — and how challenging it is to do so effectively. Conan O’Brien also made a Cosby joke Thursday night, though his was more of a quick quip thrown hastily into an otherwise unrelated sketch. Watch about two and a half minutes in: So far, it seems other late night hosts are still hanging back and avoiding the scandal altogether. _Read next:_ [_So What Do We Do About The Cosby Show?_](http://time.com/3599978/cosby-show-reruns-rape/?xid=time%5Freadnext) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/"},"headline":"Watch Seth Meyers Make the Perfect Bill Cosby Joke","datePublished":"2014-11-21T15:52:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:38.627Z","description":"It's a four-minute sketch that carefully explores the challenges of making light of the rape allegations against Bill Cosby","url":"https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Sexual Assault","Television","Seth Meyers","NBC","Conan O'brien","Late Night with Seth Meyers","conan","Bill Cosby topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b26c9ad467ae9a2/69876a3ce20a874f5aa83843/screen-shot-2014-11-21-at-10-20-04-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b26c9ad467ae9a2/69876a3ce20a874f5aa83843/screen-shot-2014-11-21-at-10-20-04-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Screen Shot 2014-11-21 at 10.20.04 AM","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/","name":"Watch Seth Meyers Make the Perfect Bill Cosby Joke"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"See Bill Cosby's Only Public Comment on Rape Allegations","description":"See Bill Cosby's Only Public Comment on Rape Allegations","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5EZrnNYI/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-11-20T01:49:38.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5EZrnNYI.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/","duration":"PT4M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3599482/bill-cosby-seth-meyers-joke/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```