Here's how comedian Hannibal Buress' life changed after he told the infamous Bill Cosby joke that ignited a fire storm

Last fall, comedian Hannibal Buress made a controversial joke about Bill Cosby at a comedy club in Philadelphia, and the resulting media pandemonium brought Cosby's sexual abuse allegations to center stage. 

"Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the '80s," Buress said in the bit, mocking Bill Cosby and his "smug" public persona. "Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby," Buress reasoned, "so turn the crazy down a couple notches."

Shaky video footage of Buress's Cosby joke went viral on a massive scale. 

In the aftermath of the joke, more than 40 women came forward as victims of Cosby's sexual abuse. Cosby has since been vilified by comedians (Judd Apatow, most prominently) and pundits alike, and the evidence against Cosby continues to pile up - as a 2005 deposition uncovered earlier this month by the Associated Press revealed that Cosby admitted to obtaining Quaaludes with the intention of "giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with."

Nonetheless, Buress's public reaction to the media firestorm he helped ignite has been one of relative apprehension.

In a new interview with GQ, Buress opened up about the controversy and revealed that the buzz around his Cosby joke actually halted Comedy Central's announcement of his new show, "Why? with Hannibal Buress."

While he doesn't exactly regret doing the Cosby bit, Buress said he was definitely shocked by the media uproar.

"You can't predict sh-t like that," he said.

The GQ interviewer pressed Buress on the subject, asking if he realized that his Cosby joke had made him "a feminist hero" for giving Cosby's many accusers the opportunity to speak openly about their abuser.

"People are going to put on you whatever they want to put on you," Buress responded, reluctant to accept the "feminist hero" title. "It is conflicting, because people think I'm like this amazing guy or something," he said, with a laugh. "I'm a decent guy."

Still, the comedian in Buress can't resist pulling a shot at Cosby when he's able to get people to laugh about it. At the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, for instance, Buress joked that he hates Bieber's music "more than Bill Cosby hates my comedy."

In the context of the GQ interview, though, Buress seemed tired of the subject.

"I don't know what the f--- else you want me to say," he concluded.