While Dave Chappelle is again taking flak for his jokes, he's also getting support for his decision to walk out of a show in Florida on Wednesday. Dean Obeidallah, a former comedian and attorney, argues Chappelle was right to leave the stage at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood after admonishing an audience member for filming him. "What anyone who thinks this was an overreaction doesn't get, is that Chappelle and comedians at his level are not just concerned with getting laughs, but also with the business end of their craft," Obeidallah writes at CNN, noting Chappelle was among the first comedians to require audience members to lock up their phones to prevent recordings.
That's partly because "if people can watch a well-known comedian's current tour for free on a bootlegged video, they might not be willing to pay for a ticket. Or people may attend, but then complain that they had seen all the jokes before," writes Obeidallah, host of SiriusXM's The Dean Obeidallah Show. Chappelle needs to keep his material fresh for Netflix specials, writes Obeidallah. Additionally, "some famous comedians don't want to be recorded in case they say something offensive on stage that could hurt their career or even lead them to being 'canceled,'" perhaps when testing out new material.
Chris Rock made that point after walking off stage in 2014. However, Chappelle "knows his jokes and comments will get press, given his stature and his penchant for telling provocative jokes that sometimes upset people," even without cameras trained on him. After all, the top-grossing comedian of 2023 courts controversy, which has "proved to be rocket fuel" for his career, Obeidallah writes. The latest controversy surrounds Chappelle's seventh Netflix special in six years, The Dreamer, which debuted on Sunday. In it, Chappelle continues his critiques of transgender people while throwing in some digs at the disabled community. (More Dave Chappelle stories.)
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