Dave Chappelle Was Attacked Onstage While Performing In The ‘Netflix Is A Joke’ Festival At The Hollywood Bowl

Dave Chappelle experienced a stage invasion on Monday night at the Hollywood Bowl in front of a live audience. While the controversial comedian stood onstage during his set at the Netflix Is A Joke comedy special, a man rushed the stage and tackled Chappelle. Deadline relays word from the local ABC affiliate, which revealed that law enforcement confirmed that a man, who was “reportedly armed with a gun and a knife,” was taken into custody after the incident. As Deadline points out, audience members’ phones had been confiscated during the set, although as the below series of clips shows, some people still managed to record footage of the incident.

As The Hollywood Reporter confirmed, the stage invader was swiftly detained after the tackle. Variety reports that Jamie Foxx assisted in apprehending the man with Chappelle later declaring, “Whenever you’re in trouble, Jamie Foxx will show up in a sheriff’s hat.” Immediately after the tackle, Chappelle continued his set onstage and then joked (while invoking his string of previous trans jokes in specials including Sticks and Stones and The Closer, the latter of which arrived in October 2021), “It was a trans man.” This first brief Twitter video shows the tackle as it happened.

Here’s Chappelle’s immediate onstage reaction, which included that joke:

And here’s the end of the set, in which Chappelle remarked to audience, “I’ll nail anyone who comes down for the curtain call.”

Chappelle, who has filmed several Netflix comedy specials, recently reupped his deal with the streamer. That deal includes this festival, all while fallout over The Closer (including employee walkouts) may have contributed to Netflix’s recent subscriber woes. In the months following that most recent (incendiary) special, Chappelle went on tour, and in New Orleans, he declared that he’d endured the roughest three weeks of his life.

(Via Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, ABC 7 & Variety)