Updated as of May 3, 2024 at 2:40p.m. PT: Though comedian Jerrod Carmichael stood 10 toes down when he initially called fellow comedian Dave Chappelle an “egomaniac,” it appears he’s done an about face.
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Speaking in an interview with “The Breakfast Club,” Carmichael admitted he wanted apologize to Chappelle for his choice of words.
“I want to say that I’m sorry for that because, one, I’m a huge Dave Chappelle fan,” he said on the show. “I think he’s brilliant. I think he’s a bright light in a dying industry. I think he’s more important now than ever before because comedians are now just posting clips of them doing crowd work online and calling it art, and it’s not art. Dave Chappelle is an artist. He’s one of the few artists that we have. And I care deeply about the work that he makes.”
See original story below.
Jerrod Carmichael is still airing out his thoughts and feelings towards Dave Chappelle.
If you’ll recall, back in June 2022, Carmichael—who came out as gay in his standup special “Rothaniel” just a few months prior—called out the O.G. comedian for his slew of anti-transgender/transphobic “jokes” in his recent standup specials and his insistence on not backing down from using them.
“I’m tired of hearing it. Chappelle, do you know what comes up when you Google your name, bro? That’s the legacy? Your legacy is a bunch of opinions on trans shit? It’s an odd hill to die on,” Carmichael said at the time during an interview with GQ. “And it’s like, hey, bro. Who the fuck are you? Who do you fuck? What do you like to do? Childish jokes aside, who the fuck are you? It’s just kind of played. But he’s choosing to die on the hill. So, alright, let him.”
Now, in a new digital cover interview with Esquire, Carmichael described Chappelle as an “egomaniac” for how he misinterpreted his response.
“He took it as ‘Fuck Dave Chappelle,’ because he’s an egomaniac,” he said. “He wanted me to apologize to him publicly or some shit.” (I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the hilarious irony of Chappelle allegedly wanting an apology for comments being made about him when he couldn’t offer one up to trans folks and others who called him out and had something to say about his material but I digress.)
Further elaborating on his original criticisms of “The Chappelle Show” comic, Carmichael said:
“[Chappelle is] not revealing anything personal about himself and he’s removed from what he’s talking about, and I think he’s smarter than that and deeper than that and has more interesting thoughts.”
In reference to comments Chappelle made about “Rothaniel,” in which he described it as “the bravest special for 1996,” Carmichael added:
“It’s like, that’s a funny enough line, whatever, but I wonder if he gets the irony that the fact that you are mocking it even then is why it was hard. I still think saying you’re gay is saying something’s wrong with you. And so much of comedy is just gay jokes. As long as people continue to laugh at it and mock it, and as long as it’s a punchline, it’s going to be scary for somebody. It’s scary for me.”
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