The Kennedy Center will rescind two of its biggest honours awarded to Bill Cosby – the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

 

In a statement, the centre says the comedian’s recent criminal conviction has “overshadowed the very career accomplishments these distinctions from the Kennedy Center intend to recognize.”

Jurors in Pennsylvania late last month convicted Cosby of sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. He awaits sentencing.

Cosby won the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and the Twain prize in 2009.

The comedian has lost several honours since his conviction. The organization that bestows the Academy Awards expelled Cosby last week, and the television academy has said it is reviewing his inclusion in its hall of fame.