Dave Chappelle Reacts to On-Stage Ambush: ‘I Felt Good My Friends Broke His Arm’
In audio from an afterparty just hours after being ambushed on stage Tuesday, comic Dave Chappelle can be heard thanking friends for taking the attacker down and cracking jokes about the whole incident.
“I felt good my friends broke his arm,” he said in audio obtained by TMZ. “I felt good, how bad does a n***** have to be that Jon Stewart would stomp him!”
Chappelle made the comment to a crowd of people at the Pendry Hotel in West Hollywood, where the comedian and Busta Rhymes — who reportedly helped neutralize the attacker — hosted an afterparty.
Almost immediately after the attacker, reported to be 23-year-old aspiring rapper Isaiah Lee, tackled Chappelle, the comedian’s friends and team members rushed on stage and proceeded to beat Lee up.
While Lee was getting dealt with towards the back of the stage, Chapppelle continued to crack jokes, quipping, “He’s back there getting stomped.”
Although Chappelle joked about killing Lee while on stage, he later backtracked while at the afterparty, and can be heard recognizing that might not be the best call.
“Killing that n**** would have been stupid,” Chappelle said in the audio.
He went on to thank his friends for reacting to the ambush, adding, “those are very powerful friends and I’m sharing [this night] with, people I love very much.”
The comedian also released an official statement on the incident through his rep Carla Sims:
The performances by Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl were epic and record-breaking and he refuses to allow last night’s incident to overshadow the magic of this historic moment.
Dave Chappelle celebrated four nights of comedy and music, setting record-breaking sales for a comedian at the Hollywood Bowl. This run ties Chappelle with Monty Python for the most headlined shows by any comedian at the Hollywood Bowl, reaching 70k fans of diverse backgrounds during the first Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival, and he refuses to allow last night’s incident to overshadow the magic of this historic moment.
As unfortunate and unsettling as the incident was, Chappelle went on with the show. Jamie Foxx and Chris Rock helped calm the crowd with humor before Chappelle introduced the last and featured musical guests for the evening, hip-hop artists yasiin bey and Talib Kweli, a.k.a. Black Star, who performed music from their new album – the first in nearly 24 years – which was released on Luminary. Other special comedic guests last night included Earthquake, Leslie Jones, Jeff Ross, Sebastian, Jon Stewart and Michelle Wolf.
