Dave Chappelle had many fans scratching their heads when he left his beloved show on Comedy Central. With his recent comeback, Chappelle has been open about the situation and has even gave explanations on why he left $ 50 Million dollars on the table. Well recently one comedy fan has come forward, revealing a conversation he had with Dave at the airport. In his reported 1 hour conversation, Dave went on to open up about leaving his show, fame, and his upbringing. The KanyeToThe user logged on to detail his encounter with Chappelle and deeper reasoning why there was never a Chappelle Show season 4.
I’m a long time Chappelle fan like many of you I’m guessing. I met Dave in an airport in Ohio, while he was waiting to pick up his wife from her flight I got the chance to sit down and ask him why he quit the show. He tried to give me the old “I just got tired of it” but I didn’t buy it. I managed to get a full hour long explanation out of him that was cut short when his wife came. First of all he wasn’t crazy or addicted to drugs around the time of his disappearance from Comedy Central. Dave talked about drugs in his comedy, but it was only ever related to societal issues. The only drug he ever mentioned doing was weed.So why’d he leave? Dave’s comedy was always political. Even some of his earliest stuff was about race. He made his jokes seem silly and wacky but underneath there were real messages about the state of things. Eg. look at black white supremacist, a sketch so absurd that it could actually be true, and makes you question the nature of racism itselfDave came from a somewhat upper class family as well. Both his parents being professors and in “inside the actor’s studio” he mentions that he was the first in his family NOT to go to college. his political and racial awareness never left him through his huge success and fame. And once his fame really exploded he felt that his message was being diluted a bit. People would quote his Rick James sketch constantly. That’s what he was known for. But the Rick James sketch is one of his weakest, politically; a silly sketch about a celebrity with a huge ego. he felt he was being perceived as a bit of a clown, rather than a stand up with integrity and a real message. Now, in an interview he said he was doing the (now outtaked) sketch of different racial stereotypes appearing as pixies, and he felt that people were laughing at him, rather than with him. A big part of being a performer is the internal joy that you get from the work. That’s why comedians and actors, etc, can work for decades without being successful, because the work is personally satisfying to them. For a comedian like Dave, who had (at this point) been doing stand up for literally his whole adult life, for him to suddenly lose that internal motivation, or to have it turn on him, would’ve been devastating. I believe that’s the real reason he quit. And at that point he decided that the 50 million just wasn’t worth it. He probably could have kept going and persevered but internally he would’ve suffered. a large part of his comedy for him was staying true to those values that he would’ve picked up from his parents in early life – the importance of being educated, importance of culture, history, pride in oneself (these are just an estimated guess given his background). But, he found that even with his huge success people were less willing to listen to harsh truths and instead enjoyed him more as a silly clown. So that’s what Dave struggled with as well, especially when his fame really took off. It was the difference between him being a comic who had something important to say (or at least his own perception of himself as such) and him being the “Rick James ****” guy. once he found himself being more of a performing clown, he had to re-evaluate what he was doing. That being said there are lots (in fact probably the majority) of comics who do simply play the clown, and enjoy it too. But Dave said he always had that political awareness inside of him that made him want to use his comedy as a means to an end. That’s why he left when 50 mil was on the table. I mean, people are complicated. To say that he was on drugs or he went crazy makes him mad because its such a typical media answer for a celebrity, especially a black one.
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