Was the Law & Order premiere based on Bill Cosby?
If the character of Henry King—and the 40 or so rape allegations against him—seemed familiar, that was by design: The premiere of Law & OrderSeason 21 was, in fact, inspired by Cosby. The Cosby-inspired Henry King (portrayed by well-known stage actor Norm Lewis, who was the first Black performer to play the title role of ThePhantom of the Opera on Broadway) was made to be a singer, though, not a comedian, and he only bears a passing resemblance to the disgraced former TV star. The Season 21 premiere episode opens with him denying the allegations against him, insisting in a TV interview that he went to prison for crimes he never committed. The parallels to Cosby are clear. In the show, King is accused of raping 40 women, many of whom he was also alleged to have drugged. He was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison, but was released after less than three years due to a prior agreement with a prosecutor to not charge him with a crime. Similarly, in 2018, Cosby was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting AndreaConstand when she was a Temple University employee in 2004; he was sentenced to three- to 10 years behind bars. On June 30, 2021, Cosby was released from prison after a Pennsylvania court overturned his conviction, citing a prosecutor’s prior promise to not criminally charge him for assaulting Constand. In the Law & Order Season 21 premiere, King’s character is murdered by one of his rape victims, and witnesses—including his own wife—side with his killer, Nicole Bell. Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson) pointedly tells partner Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) that it’s the first time in years anyone cares that a Black man was shot. The two have several exchanges throughout the episode exposing Cosgrove’s blind spots about race and policing, including a dustup with a potential witness that bystanders recorded with their phones. D.A. Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) and E.A.D.A. Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) argue over the ethics and legality of Cosgrove lying to Bell to secure a confession of King’s murder. McCoy says if it’s legal, it’s ethical. Price says it should be taken on a case-by-case basis and that Cosgrove continually misled Bell and took advantage of her being a rape victim to secure a confession. McCoy expressed distaste at defunding the police, and Lt. Kate Dixon (Camryn Manheim) previously slammed progressive takes on policing. Price and McCoy eventually decided to not submit Bell’s confession into evidence, relying instead on video footage and circumstantial evidence. Price asks A.D.A. Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi) to deliver the closing arguments. Speaking to the jury, Maroun recalls that her own sister was raped and killed in Georgia and that the family and police knew who the killer was, but that they couldn’t prove it, so she understood Bell’s rage and thirst for revenge. Maroun said Bell was suffering but shouldn’t have played God, and that the jury could sympathize with Bell while also convicting her of the murder. Maroun was visibly uncomfortable after delivering her closing argument. Bell is found guilty and tells the crowd of women and protesters in the courtroom, “I did this for you, for all of us. Move on with your lives!” Nolan told Maroun after court, “The jury got it right, Sam.” She replied, “It doesn’t feel right.” While Law & Order creator Dick Wolfand the rest of the cast didn’t speak about the premiere episode’s plot prior to its Feb. 24 debut, Dancy told Entertainment Tonight that in terms of storylines, “[It] became clear pretty quickly that they really stuck to that ripped-from-the-headlines thing.” Waterston previously revealed creating some outrage, in part by dramatizing actual cases in the news, is part of the show’s entire aim. “We’re not shying away from any of those [timely] conflicts. In fact, it’s always been the goal of the show to get people throwing their shoes at the television, and certainly there are issues that are going to infuriate people and frustrate people about how they turned out,” the actor told Variety. “That’s the pleasure of watching Law & Order; there is a resolution but there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the way it goes. It feels, to me, like Law & Order might have something to contribute to the general conversation because we’re all mad about something. We’re all mad as hell about something right now and mad at each other. For us to get these big issues aired, and to have not a conclusion but a resolution of some kind that you can chew on, might be a useful service.” Anderson, meanwhile, told Entertainment Tonight that real-life inspiration for the show’s plotlines makes audiences more invested in the series, explaining, “I think people, you know, are interested in seeing and being a part of those stories that are being told and being a part of history.”
Which Law & Order: SVU star accused Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct?
In what may be considered another art-imitating-life wrinkle, Michelle Hurd, a former star of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (she’s currently appearing on Star Trek: Picard), previously accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. In a 2014 Facebook post (via The Daily Mail), Hurd recalled that when she was a stand-in on The Cosby Show in the 1980s, Cosby was “very inappropriate” with her. “I dodged the ultimate bullet with him when he asked me to come to his house, take a shower so we could blow dry my hair and see what it looked like straightened,” she wrote. “At that point, my own red flags went off and I told him, ‘No, I’ll just come to work tomorrow with my hair straightened.” Hurd said that another actress on the set told her that she’d gone to Cosby’s home and been drugged and assaulted. Cosby, through his attorney, denied the allegations.
Did Law & Order: SVU cover the Cosby case?
Another reason the Law & Order Season 21 reboot premiere may have felt like déjà vu all over again? The franchise’s SVU series likewise covered the Cosby case years ago. In 2016, Law & Order: SVUdropped the episode “Star-Struck Victims,” which chronicled a popular actor being accused of sexual assault. In the episode, a fledgling vlogger accuses a TV star of rape—but, of course, being SVU, there are plenty of other twists and turns throughout the case. Kelli Giddish, who is the main star in the episode and whose character Amanda Rollins is central to the case, told E! News, “There’s a TV actor that does some pretty wrong stuff. He does it over, and over, and over. Rollins, she gets so frustrated with not being able to prove it, that this guy is acting in such a horrendous manner, that she puts herself undercover. Dodds actually steps up to the plate to kind of really have her back, but it does get her in a really weird situation. Just to able to play that and go undercover—it’s always fun.” When asked if the episode’s storyline was based on Cosby, she replied, “Yeah, a little bit,” adding, “There’s also been some other cases I know they were looking at, just in terms of people completely taking advantage of their situation, their position of power to just do some dirty, dirty stuff. Of course it’s always an amalgam of different cases tied into one. I think they really, really did a great job in this one, doing that. Of course, it’s going to call to mind some things that have been in the headlines…if you sift through all of those cases, you’ll see different aspects in each one in that. Like always, they just take the headline and they get to play around with it. It completely opens up in the writers’ imagination.”
What have Law & Order: SVU stars Ice-T and Mariska Hargitay said about Bill Cosby.
When Cosby was released from prison, several stars of Law & Order: SVUspoke out in their own ways. Ice Ttweeted a doctored photo of Cosby with “prison muscles” post-release, captioning the snap, “Smh [shaking my head].” On a more somber note, Mariska Hargitay, an outspoken activist for sexual abuse survivors, tweeted a photo of Cosby’s accusers and wrote, “To every survivor… I see you, hear you, and acknowledge the pain you are experiencing. And I believe you. #BelieveWomen #MeToo #SupportSurvivors.” Next, check out the best Law & Order: SVU episodes ever—so far!
