Walk of Fame says it won’t give Bill Cosby the boot

Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Some local African-American activists led by Earl Ofari Hutchinson want the comedian’s star dug up from the 6900 block of Hollywood Boulevard and thrown onto the scrap heap. The activists sent a letter to the Chamber this week after the unsealing of a 2005 deposition in which Cosby admitted giving drugs to women he wanted to have sex with. In light of Cosby’s admission, they say keeping his star is “a gross slap at the industry and the public.”

In the past couple of years, more than two dozen women have claimed that Cosby sexually assaulted them, with many of the incidents involving drugs. The statute of limitations has expired in most of those cases, but the LAPD acknowledged this week that it’s

investigating at least one of those claims, and perhaps more.

In spite of that, the Chamber says the star will stay. In a statement, the business group said that no star has ever been removed from the Walk of Fame, and that Cosby’s won’t be the first.

The Walt Disney Co. has not been so circumspect. A bronze statue of Cosby was removed from the company’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park in Florida this week. A couple of TV networks also said they were dropping reruns of Cosby shows.