American stand-up comedian, Dave Chappelle was attacked by a man while performing a Netflix comedy show in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, May 3.
Video from the Netflix Is A Joke event shows a man charging onto the stage and tackling the comedian before being dragged off by security.
Dave Chappelle just got attacked on stage
— Hoodville (@Hoodville_) May 4, 2022
A man ran on stage and tackled Dave Chapelle at the Hollywood Bowl. He then proceeded to say “it was a trans man.” pic.twitter.com/iBJg4408HL
— Pop Base (@PopBase) May 4, 2022
Jamie Foxx, who was watching the show from the wings of the Hollywood Bowl wearing a sheriff’s hat, rushed to help detain the attacker, who was then reportedly subjected to punches and kicks from Chappelle’s security once he was caught.
Conflicting reports indicate the suspect may have been armed with a gun and a knife but this has not been confirmed by Los Angeles police.
Chappelle, who last year sparked outrage in the trans community with controversial comments in a Netflix show, appeared to be uninjured and continued with his set, joking: ‘It was a trans man.’
He also added as he picked up the microphone following the attack: ‘I am going to kill that n****.’
Chris Rock, who performed later in the event last night and was similarly subjected to a violent outburst on stage at the Oscars in March, came on stage and joked: ‘Was that Will Smith?‘
Read Also: Oscars 2022: Will Smith Slaps Chris Rock On Stage For Making Fun Of Jada’s Bald Head (Videos)
Chappelle then replied: ‘I thought it was you for a second!‘
Footage later appears to show the suspect being treated by paramedics for a badly injured arm before he was taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Man That Attacked Dave Chappelle At His Show At Hollywood Bowl Has Hands Broken and Dislocated pic.twitter.com/ZvPgjdV5gz
— raphousetv (@raphousetv2) May 4, 2022
After the attacker was detained, Chappelle thanked Foxx on stage during the curtain call.
He said;
Shout out to Jamie Foxx by the way. Whenever you’re in trouble, Jamie Foxx will show up in a sheriff’s hat.
Foxx replied: ‘I thought that was part of the show, I didn’t know what the f***…’
Chappelle said: ‘I grabbed the back of that n**** head. His hair was spongy. Absorbent.‘
Foxx added;
Listen, I just want to say, this man is an absolute genius. We’ve got to make sure we protect him at all times. For every comedian who comes out here, this means everything. You’re a genius. You’re a legend, I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and we’re not going to let nothing happen to you.
Chappelle said;
I’ve been doing this for 35 years. I just stomped a n**** backstage. I’ve always wanted to do that.
Chappelle came under fire last year over jokes about transgender people in his Netflix comedy show ‘The Closer’.
During the controversial special, he made one comment stating that ‘gender is a fact‘, prompting Netflix staff to protest and mass outrage on social media against some of his jokes.
In the special, he stated that he does not hate transgender people, and tells a long anecdote about a trans woman comedian, who he describes as a friend, who came to his defense in earlier entanglements with the community.
Chappelle added;
Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact.
He also joked that women today view transwomen the same way black people might view white women wearing blackface, and remarked that women are entitled to feel anger toward transwomen, since Caitlyn Jenner won Glamour magazine’s 2015 Woman of the Year award.
‘I’d be mad as sh*t if I was a woman,’ Chappelle said.
The attack comes weeks after Will Smith attacked Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars. The actor slapped the comedian on stage after a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith‘s shaved head.
Pinkett-Smith has been open in the past about her struggles with alopecia, sudden hair loss from the scalp or elsewhere on the body.
