Dave’s rules of engagement
EMBATTLED comedian Dave Chappelle said he’d be willing to meet with Netflix’s transgender employees, if he were invited. But he added he’d have some strict ground rules.
“If they had invited me, I would have accepted it, although I am confused about what we would be speaking about,” Chappelle said in a video he posted Monday. He apparently was addressing reports he could meet with Netflix employees who organized a walkout in protest over controversial jokes he made in his comedy special “The Closer.”
“I said what I said, and boy, I heard what you said. My God, how could I not? You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. It seems like I’m the only one who can’t go to the office,” joked Chappelle in the clip.
But he added: “I am not bending to anyone’s demands. And if you want to meet with me, I am more than willing to, but I have some conditions. First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing, and thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny.” Comic Gadsby is one of the stars who has spoken out against Chappelle’s show.
Chappelle — who’s on tour and filmed the clip in front of an audience — also said, “Do not blame the LGBTQ community for any of this. It’s about corporate interests, and what I
can say, and what I cannot say. For the record . . . everyone I know from that community has been loving and supportive, so I don’t know what this nonsense is about.”
He said his upcoming doc on his Ohio “Summer Camp” festivals during the pandemic has
suffered as part of the backlash against him, and he’ll now self-distribute it.
“This film that I made was invited to every film festival in the United States. Some of those invitations I accepted. When this controversy came out . . . they began disinviting me from these film festivals, and now, today, not a film company, not a movie studio, not a film festival, nobody will touch this film. Thank God for Ted Sarandos and Netflix. He’s the only one that didn’t cancel me yet.”