Bill Cosby Rape Allegations: Protests Await Comedian As He Performs For First Time Since November

Mixed reactions are certain to greet embattled Bill Cosby, who is about to return to stage for the first time on Wednesday night since being accused of sexually assaulting women last year.

The 77-year-old comedian is set to make appearances in three separate shows in Kitchener, London, as well as in Hamilton in Ontario, Canada from Wednesday to Friday.

The show at the Centre in the Square in Kitchener will be his first show since he last made an adoring audience laughed in Melbourne, Florida, on Nov. 21, 2014.

A TV project and at least 10 of his performances scheduled for a stand-up comedy tour got cancelled or indefinitely postponed since the controversy.

But protests are planned to welcome Cosby with the Abused Women's Centre reportedly preparing for a demonstration outside the London venue.

Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic said he will attend an alternative event that was organized to raise awareness of sexual assault at the same time as Cosby's show.

Cosby's schedules in Canada will push through two days after three women claiming that the star sexually abused them have filed defamation charges against the septuagenarian for branding the victims as liars in public.

The lawsuit details each woman's encounter with Cosby, who allegedly offered the women with unidentified pills before sexually assaulting them separately in different times in the 70s.

The women, who were among the 15 respondents who accused Cosby of sexual assault since November, are seeking damages. Cosby, however, has flatly denied their allegations.

Cosby, who earned a reputation as "America's Dad" for starring in the hit "The Cosby Show" from 1984 to 1992, has not yet been charged in connection with any of the allegations.

In 2005, a similar lawsuit by a woman in Pennsylvania was settled before it even went to trial.