Bill Cosby’s statue was removed from Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios park in response to reports this week claiming that the comedian admitted in a 2005 deposition that he obtained drugs with the intention of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with.
Disney officials said the bronze bust was quietly taken out of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame Plaza Tuesday night after a Pennsylvania court unsealed the deposition.
An online petition requesting that Disney remove the tribute from the park had been active online for the months
prior to the bust’s removal, said the Orlando Sentinel.
“To not be able to walk through Disney without having that difficult encounter, it makes me sad,” Brittany Gavrilova,
the niece of one of Cosby’s alleged victims, told WESH. “Like, wow, this person hurt a family member of mine."
“Especially now that a document has been released where he has admitted to it, I don't think that someone like that should be placed on a pedestal, especially where people bring their families," she continued.
The 77-year-old has never had criminal charges against him, although dozens of women from Cosby’s past have spoken out against the star recently, saying he sexually assaulted them up to 40 years ago.
The 2005 unsealed deposition is the product of a suit filed by one of Cosby’s alleged victims, Andrea Constand. Dolores Troiani, Constand’s lawyer, asked the actor about the Quaaludes on the stand 10 years ago.
“When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" she asked.
“Yes,”
Cosby answered, according to CNN.
David Brokaw, Cosby’s publicist, says he and his client “have no plans to issue a statement."
Unlike Disney, the Smithsonian Institution appears unmoved by the new evidence against Cosby. Smithsonian refuses to remove Cosby’s donated art from an exhibition at the National Museum of African Art that opened in November.
Smithsonian has said that it is “aware of the recent revelations about Bill Cosby's behavior” and
“in no way condones this behavior,” Fox News reported.
However, the museum maintains that the exhibition is about the artwork and not about those who own the pieces.