Jay Leno on Bill Cosby controversy: 'I don't know why it's so hard to believe women'

Comedian Jay Leno made it clear that he is not standing behind Bill Cosby, who is now facing allegations from over 20 women who claim that the Cosby Show star drugged and raped them.

The former Tonight Show host was speaking at the NATPE conference in Miami on Wednesday for a Q&A session with comedian Tom Papa.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe women,” Leno told Papa, reports Variety. “You to go Saudi Arabia and you need two women to testify against a man. Here you need 25.”

Leno went on to praise comedian Hannibal Buress, who called Cosby a rapist in October, sparking the controversy that now surrounds Cosby. Buress’ comments were posted on YouTube, unfiltered, which Leno thinks was great.

Buress is “a stand-up comedian and he made a flat-out statement that reverberated around the world. If that had been on television, it would have been edited,” Leno explained, reports The Hollywood Reporter. “But because somebody would put the news out raw and unfiltered — which I think is fantastic — it was a great thing.”

Leno’s comments come just a few hours after Malcolm-Jamal Walker, who played Cosby’s son on The Cosby Show, spoke about the controversy. While Walker wouldn’t speak to the validity of the claims, he told Billboard, “Just as it's painful to hear any woman talk about sexual assault, whether true or not, it's just as painful to watch my friend and mentor go through this.”

Leno also praised Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore, who just started his new show, The Nightly Show. He also praised Jimmy Fallon, who took over The Tonight Show.

He also spoke about his terrible decision to do a 10 p.m. variety show on NBC. Leno admitted that it was a bad idea, but the NBC executives suggested that it was the one way to keep him at the network while still giving Conan O’Brien the Tonight Show.

image courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com

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