Dave Chappelle Gleefully Celebrates Being ‘Canceled’ at Tour Kickoff Amid Netflix Controversy

Dave Chappelle may have previously whined about cancel culture following the backlash to his latest Netflix special, The Closer, but it clearly hasn’t had any effect on his career. The comedian began his 10-city live comedy tour in San Francisco to a sold-out crowd of 19,000 at the Chase Center for a screening of his new documentary, Untitled. Chappelle had previously claimed that Untitled had been rejected by film festivals following the transphobic remarks that he made in The Closer.

However, Chappelle clearly still has fan support and gleefully celebrated the concept of being canceled before the crowd. “Man, I love being canceled,” Chappelle quipped to the enthusiastic crowd. “It is a huge relief. It’s like getting Capone on tax evasion.” The documentary focuses on Chappelle’s efforts to host outdoor comedy shows at the height of the pandemic, and following the screening, he addressed the backlash. 

“For the past three or four weeks, they’ve been saying in the news that I’ve been canceled. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The point is, no matter what they say, we are together.” He likened the discussion around his special to the backlash he faced when he quit Chappelle’s Show in 2003. “I’m going through something,” Chappelle said. “It might be history.”

Chappelle has been called out for using the transgender community as punchlines in The Closer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he said, “Gender is a fact. 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.” Additionally, he sided with J.K. Rowling’s TERF ideology and said that he was “team TERF.” TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist and is an ideology that excludes trans women as women. These weren’t the only statements that he came under fire for, as he also shared jokes about the #MeToo movement and the LGBT community as a whole. 

These statements were met with pushback, particularly from trans Netflix employees and other allies. Chappelle eventually spoke on the backlash in an Instagram video, but although the comedian said he would meet with transgender Netflix employees and members of the trans community, he refused to bend to “anybody’s demands.” He also stood by the original comments in The Closer that many found transphobic, noting, “I said what I said.”

Chappelle referred to reports that he refused to speak to transgender Netflix employees, but said that was not true, reports Variety. “If they had invited me I would have accepted it, although I am confused about what we would be speaking about,” Chappelle said in the clip. “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 that can’t go to the office anymore.”

He went on to claim “corporate interests” were behind the controversy and noted how some members of the LGBTQ+ community have supported him. “I want everyone in this audience to know that even though the media frames it that it’s me versus that community, that is not what it is. Do not blame the LBGTQ [sic] community for any of this s—,” Chappelle said. “This has nothing to do with them. It’s about corporate interests and what I can say and what I cannot say. For the record, and I need you to know this, everyone I know from that community has been loving and supporting, so I don’t know what all this nonsense is about.”

Chappelle later said he has a documentary about his 2020 comedy tour in the can, but it will not be shown at upcoming film festivals because of the controversy. “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,” Chappelle said.

Towards the end of the video, Chappelle revealed his list of conditions that have to be met in order to meet members of the trans community. The first is that they must have watched The Closer from beginning to end, and the second is that the meeting has to be at a time of his choosing. The last condition was “you must admit that Hannah GadSby is not funny,” a reference to comedian Hannah Gadsby, who has two Netflix specials. Gasby, who is a lesbian, recently posted a statement asking Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos not to “drag my name into your mess” after Sarandos mentioned her in one of his memos to Netflix staff in response to the Chappelle controversy.