North Philly Bill Cosby Mural Defaced, Finally Painted Over for Good

The 2008 Father’s Day mural in North Philly featuring Bill Cosby situated prominently among world leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. was recently defaced by spray-painters, who tagged words like “rapist” and “dude with ludes” overtop the smiling, sweater-wearing comedian. A shot from local Instagrammer @thesockpolice shows the damage:

After the damage was done, Mural Arts, who commissioned the mural and recently said it was scheduled for decommission anyway, decided to speed up the cover-up process and they applied a fresh coat of white paint over the mural last week.

Mural Arts released a statement explaining that the Father’s Day mural had been on a list to decommission for a while, namely because of its location under a bridge on Broad Street near Indiana Avenue, which isn’t conducive to proper mural upkeep. Despite their plans to do away with the mural, the arts organization states that, “Due to recent headlines about Bill Cosby, the Mural Arts Program decided to move the decommissioning of this mural to the top of the list. After going through the process of informing those who participated in the creation of the mural, the mural was painted over.” Here’s a then-and-now photo to show you the painted-over progress.

Mural of Bill Cosby is painted over in Philadelphia http://t.co/hjmMRBtrU3 pic.twitter.com/BpWrjQmyM5

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) July 24, 2015

According to philly.com,  Mural Arts is expected to relocate the mural to a different location—without Cosby’s likeness.