Bill Cosby’s Star to Stay on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Bill Cosby’s star will remain on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced Wednesday.

The statement comes after the 78-year-old comedian was formally charged Wednesday with drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his Philadelphia home in 2004. In addition to the charge, dozens of women have accused Cosby of sexual assault or abuse over the past year.

“The answer is no,” Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Leron Gubler said in a statement. “Once a Star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Because of this, we have never removed a Star from the walk.”

Gubler issued the same statement when activists lobbied the Chamber to remove Cosby’s star earlier this summer, after it was revealed that the comedian admitted in a 2005 deposition to giving Quaaludes to women with whom he intended to have sex.

Tourists in Hollywood weighed in on the star’s possible removal at the time, with Maryland resident Jason Young telling the Associated Press: “You’d have to remove almost everybody’s [star] if you were concerned about morals.”

Cosby’s star was installed in 1977 in a prime location close to the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. The star was vandalized late last year, when an unknown person scrawled the word “Rapist” over it repeatedly.

“The Hollywood Walk of Fame is an institution celebrating the positive contributions of the inductees. When people are unhappy with one of our honorees, we would hope that they would project their anger in more positive ways then to vandalize a California State landmark,” the Chamber had said in a statement responding to the vandalism.