RIP Dan McQuade: You made a difference

The former Philadelphia magazine journalist whose 2014 video of comedian Hannibal Buress calling Cosby a rapist went viral dies at the age of 43

I was so sad when I learned recently that former Philadelphia magazine journalist Dan McQuade had died at the age of 43 from neuroendocrine cancer. He was far too young and had far too much to live for. But as I read obit after obit about him, I was also happy to see The New York Times acknowledge his contribution to the Bill Cosby case, calling him a “catalyst in Cosby’s downfall,” even if it’s a legacy Dan himself wasn’t quite comfortable with. He wanted the focus to be on the women who were drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby, not him, he told me when I interviewed him for my podcast based on my book CHASING COSBY in June 2019.

I get that. But his video of comedian Hannibal Buress calling Cosby a rapist in October 2014 set off a chain of events that led, ultimately, to Cosby being arrested for drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University women’s basketball director of operations Andrea Constand in January 2004. He deserved credit for that. Which is why I was determined to include him in my podcast. I’d tried to reach him when I was writing my book, but I only had two months to write it and was forced to use the interview he gave to the website Billy Penn. I decided to try again in May 2019. I called, emailed, texted, and probably even reached out on Facebook to him to see if he’d participate. Nada. Finally, in desperation, I reached out to his father, Drew McQuade, whom I used to work with at the Philadelphia Daily News, to see if he could help. It worked.

Dan McQuade. Photo courtesy McQuade family

I think the thing that surprised me the most when I interviewed Dan – besides how humble he was – was how completely random his decision to go to that Hannibal Buress performance at the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia that night was. Dan was a fan of Buress, which is why he wanted to go see him when a friend offered him a ticket to Buress’ show. He declined, because he was covering a protest by Philadelphia teachers that night. “Basically, I was doing it because I’d just started dating a teacher, who I’m now engaged to,” he told me. “So that’s why I was doing this other story rather than going to the Hannibal Buress concert…. even though I was a fan of Hannibal Buress.”

But once he finished writing his story at his favorite bar, Oscar’s Tavern, in Rittenhouse Square, he noticed his friend had tweeted that he still had an extra ticket for Buress’ show. “It was the late show, at 10 p.m.,” he said. “I didn’t know Hannibal was doing two performances that night at the Troc. So I messaged my friend and said, ‘Oh. I didn’t realize this show was at 10 p.m. I can go.’ " The two met up and walked the five blocks together to the Troc.”

Dan was “fiddling with his phone” when, toward the end of Buress’ set, he heard Buress say Cosby’s name. Dan’s ears perked up. “I immediately pulled out my phone, hit record, and started filming,” he said. “And we were, as you can tell if you’ve seen the video, pretty far in the back … Lots of reports have called [the video] hazy or grainy or bad, but I think it’s a pretty good video for 2014 shot surreptitiously in the back of a comedy theater.”

When he left the theater that night, more people were talking about someone who’d projectile vomited in the back of the theater than Buress’ bit calling Cosby a rapist, but he still planned to post about it on Philadelphia magazine’s blog the next day. He was excited because that meant he could even sleep in a little because he wouldn’t have that much to write. The video would tell the story.

“Here’s a young black comedian going to town on Bill Cosby. In Cosby’s hometown,” he told me. “Bill Cosby famously had interactions with Eddie Murphy in the ‘80s about how he didn’t like Eddie Murphy’s routines and his cursing. He had lectured other young black comedians in the past, so here’s a different young black comedian years later saying, you know, ‘Fuck you, Bill Cosby. Yeah, you don’t curse, but you rape women, so … I don’t need to take your advice on anything.’ I thought it was funny. If you watch the video, my laugh comes in, like, 15 seconds into it. And then I was able to stifle the rest because I realized this was going to be put online. I didn’t want to cover up Hannibal’s jokes.”

He remembered all of the local coverage of Constand’s case in 2005 and was surprised that most people didn’t. “I always thought it was funny that people would be like, ‘Oh, I’ve never heard of that,” he said. “And it’s like, ‘Oh really? I thought that was a big story. Maybe not. So I did think, ‘Oh. Here’s a way to get this Cosby story back into the public eye again.’ Obviously, I didn’t really know what would happen after it.”

But posting the video along with his four-paragraph story the next day took a little longer than he planned. “It was looked at by Philadelphia magazine’s lawyers because Cosby was famously litigious, at least in the local media scene, and probably all over, about people who tried to report about Andrea Constand’s allegations against him, and her lawsuit,” he said. “So I believe a sentence was put into the story that was something to the effect of Bill Cosby has never been [criminally charged with] rape.”

The story and video finally went live on Friday, October 17, 2014, at 3:52 p.m. “I think they eventually sent it back to me and said, ‘Hey. This is ready to go up,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Oh good. Friday afternoon. Just when everyone’s reading the Internet.” He quickly wrote the headline. “Hannibal Buress on Bill Cosby: You’re a rapist.’”

“I’ve written thousands of headlines in my time,” he said. “I guess that one was pretty good.”

The story didn’t get any traction at first, he said. But Buzzfeed ‘s Ariane Lange saw a post about it on a friend’s Facebook page over the weekend and decided to follow up. “I noticed they hadn’t mentioned reaching out to Cosby or Buress, and I hadn’t seen the story anywhere else, so it seemed worth aggregating with a request for comment,” Lange wrote in an email to Billy Penn. That Monday afternoon, she posted her story Less than an hour later, Gawker picked it up. By the time Buress showed up for a previously scheduled interview with shock jock Howard Stern that Wednesday Stern was promoting his appearance with the headline “The Comedian Who Toppled Cosby Stops by to Talk Fame, Jokes, and the Future” on his website. Buress was a bit bemused about all of the attention, saying he’d been doing the bit on and off for about six months. He wasn’t trying to take down Cosby or start a discussion about rape. “It wasn’t my intention to make it part of a big discussion,” Buress told Stern.

By then, it was everywhere. More women began coming forward, saying Cosby had done unspeakable things to them. Some were the same women I’d interviewed back in 2005, but many had never spoken publicly before. Cosby’s representatives angrily denied each and every allegation, but it didn’t stop the steady flow of new accusers telling their stories. Cosby tried to quell the coverage with a meme contest on Twitter, which “backfired spectacularly,” as the New York Post wrote. Eventually, the coverage began to seep into the mainstream media. The AP went to court to fight to get certain documents in Constand’s civil suit against Cosby, which she’d settled in 2006, unsealed. After the AP won that battle the following summer, The New York Times got hold of Cosby’s entire deposition, in which he admitted to giving Quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. The reaction was explosive. Then-Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman, who’d been Castor’s number two in 2005 when Castor refused to criminally charge Cosby, quietly reopened Constand’s case. That December, Cosby was arrested and charged with drugging and sexually assaulting Constand. He was convicted in April 2018 and sentenced to three to five years in prison in September 2018. Several Cosby survivors won defamation lawsuits against him (for derogatory comments his representatives made about them when they went public in 2014 and 2015) after his conviction, and more than two dozen other survivors currently have sexual abuse lawsuits pending against him. None of that would have happened without Dan’s story and video. Especially his video.

I asked Dan what his thoughts were about the role he played in all of this. “I’m certainly overwhelmed by the suggestion that my video helped sexual assault survivors get justice all these years later,” he said. “And obviously it is, in a way, flattering. On the other hand, I almost don’t want to hear it because it’s not my story. It’s the survivors of Bill Cosby’s story to tell. That I played a small role in the ability for them to tell their story obviously makes me feel good about myself, in a way. But it’s not my story. It’s their story. And so that is who attention should be focused on.”

As I said above, I understand why he felt that way. And I even agree. To a point. But that doesn’t mean Dan’s contribution should be ignored. Because he wasn’t working that night at the Troc. He was out with a friend. He could have just put his phone away and enjoyed the Buress show. He didn’t have to start filming or write a story about it. And what if he hadn’t? How many other women would have been victimized by Cosby? The fact that his one video and short story did what dozens of my stories about Cosby’s misdeeds for the Philadelphia Daily News couldn’t do in 2005 still boggles my mind, but I’m so, so thankful his journalism instincts kicked in. So is Andrea Constand, who made sure he was included in her 2023 docuseries The Case Against Cosby.

“I am heartbroken,” she told me. “His work triggered the beginnings of justice for many survivors, and for that reason alone, we couldn’t be more grateful. May he rest easy.”

So yes. I get the whole “This is not about me” argument Dan made when I interviewed him, but the reality is the story he wrote and the video he posted had an impact, much the same way actress Alyssa Milano’s now-famous #metoo tweet in October 2017 launched a movement. And that is one hell of a legacy.

[Dan’s colleagues at the Defector have started a fundraiser in his name to both honor his memory and help his wife, Jan, a public school teacher, and two-year-old son, Simon. You can contribute by going here. If you have any memories of Dan you’d like to share with his family email rememberingDHM@gmail.com]