D.L. Hughley Recalls Bill Cosby Clash Over N-Word & Panties

D.L. Hughley says a tense radio confrontation with Bill Cosby vanished before listeners ever heard it.

The comedian revisited the encounter during a PBS NewsHour “Settle In” segment with Geoff Bennett. Hughley said Cosby arrived at his New York radio show and was dismissive toward co-hosts Jacque Reid and Steve Wilson.

Expecting the interview to go sideways, Hughley joined the conversation.

Cosby challenged Hughley’s use of the N-word. Hughley responded by bringing up the sexual assault allegations that had followed the entertainer.

“No offense, Mr. Cosby, I say [expletive], but I never had a coed wake up with their panties on backwards,” Hughley recalled telling him.

Hughley said Cosby immediately predicted the exchange would never make it to air.

Executives then came downstairs, took the recording and kept the segment from being broadcast. Hughley did not identify the executives or say who ultimately made the decision. He said the tape never resurfaced, and the interview remained buried.

The moment left him with a difficult distinction. Hughley acknowledged that Cosby changed television and widened the space available to Black families on screen. He also rejected the idea that cultural importance should block scrutiny of a powerful person’s conduct.

“Bill wasn’t Cliff,” Hughley said, separating Cosby from the beloved television father he played.

The allegations have also produced civil judgments. In March 2026, a California jury found Cosby liable for sexually assaulting and battering Donna Motsinger in 1972 and awarded her $19.25 million. Cosby’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said an appeal was planned.

That civil verdict was separate from Cosby’s Pennsylvania criminal case.

His 2018 conviction was overturned in 2021 after the state’s highest court ruled that prosecutors had violated an earlier non-prosecution agreement. He was released after serving nearly three years.

Hughley included the radio encounter in his new memoir, Charlie’s Boy, which traces his childhood in South Central Los Angeles, gang involvement, family trauma and later life as a father and comedian.

The Cosby story fit the larger theme Hughley brought to “Settle In”: success may explain how a person gained influence, but it does not erase what that influence was used to protect.