Dave Chappelle was attacked by a fan while on stage and Chris Rock immediately joked that he thought it was Will Smith.
Dave Chappelle is a stand-up comedian who found fame back in 2003 with his comedy sketch series, Chappelle’s Show.
From there, Chappelle’s comedy career continued to grow as he performed stand-up comedy across the US and later signed a deal with Netflix releasing 6 stand-up specials.
But over recent years, Chappelle has faced heavy criticism…
It came when his Netflix special, The Closer, was accused of being transphobic.
There were calls to have the special removed from the streaming service with some Netflix staff even walking out in protest.
But, the show stayed after the Netflix CEO, Ted Sarandos defended it.
But recently, Chappelle has hit the headlines for another reason…
After someone ran on stage and attacked him during a performance.
The incident took place on May 3rd during Chappelle’s performance at the Hollywood Bowl in LA.
Chappelle was performing as part of the Netflix is a Joke festival when a man attacked him on stage, the BBC reports.
Footage shared on social media shows a man jumping on the stage and running into Chappelle.
Sharon Carpenter, a reporter who was at the show, watched the incident unfold and shared details about the incident on Twitter.
Recalling the attack, Carpenter wrote: “Dave Chappelle was just assaulted on stage at his Hollywood Bowl show.”
“He was finishing up his performance when a man ran on-stage and lunged at him knocking him to the floor. Security & his entourage then cornered the man as Dave joked about how him getting ‘stomped’ backstage.”
In a follow-up tweet, Carpenter said that “Chris Rock and John Stewart were among the group of comedians” also performing at the show that night.
She claimed that “Jamie Foxx jumped onstage to help and make sure Dave was OK.”
Fortunately, Chappelle was unharmed by the attack and although likely to be shook, he managed to make some jokes about it…
Including a Will Smith joke.
Carpenter wrote that there were “jokes about how he thought his attacker may have been Will Smith.”
It comes after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars back in March, and the latter, who took to the stage after Chappelle, made a joke by asking if the attacker “was Will Smith?”
What do you think about the joke?