Dave Chappelle attempted to address a controversy he created last week when some fans got up and left one of his shows over remarks that he made about Israel after more than 1,400 people were murdered there earlier this month.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Chappelle made the remarks during a performance in Boston last Thursday, a claim that a spokesperson for Chappelle denied, saying that he was not in Boston at the time. The New York Post reported that he had a show listed in Boston on Thursday among the list of dates that he would be performing.
However, speaking to a packed crowd of more than 20,000 people at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday night, Chappelle said that something was said at his show in Boston that caused controversy — thus acknowledging that the statement from his spokesperson was not truthful.
“Right now, I’m in trouble because the Jewish community is upset,” Chappelle said. “But I cannot express this enough: No matter what you read about that show in Boston, you will never see quotation marks around anything I said. They don’t know what I said.”
The New York Times reported that Chappelle requires everyone in the audience to surrender their phones at his shows so he cannot be recorded.
“Sorry,” Chappelle later told the audience about them not being able to have their phones with them. “I don’t want the Jews to know what I said.”
Chappelle claimed that all the reports were “heresay” and claimed that he was “misquoted all over the world,” yet he refused to say what his remarks were.
At that point, a leftist stood up in the crowd and began shouting: “Free Palestine.”
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“Please, please, miss,” Chappelle responded. “Listen. Don’t start it up or I’m going to be in the news cycle for another week. This thing that’s happening in the Middle East is bigger than everybody.”
He tried to equivocate both sides that it was a “nightmare” for Israel and for the Palestinians and that people should pray for both sides.
“There’s only two kinds of people in the world: people who love other people and the people that have things to make them afraid to love other people,” he claimed. “And remember that every dead person is a dead person.”
During his appearance in Boston, Chappelle reportedly stood up for students who were facing fewer job prospects after they cheered on the slaughter of Israelis at the hands of the genocidal Palestinian terrorists.
A member of the audience was apparently stern with Chappelle, telling him to shut up, which sparked an “emotional response” from him attacking Israel for cutting off supplies to the area — even though Israel is not required to provide supplies to terrorists.
Some in the audience reportedly shouted “Free Palestine,” triggering some fans to get up and leave the event.
He later reportedly tried to draw a false moral equivalence between Israel’s policies and Hamas’ heinous terrorist attacks.
One man who attended the event told the Daily Mail: “The audience was cheering Chappelle on during his tirade. I was sick. We were sick. I turned to my friends and wife and said I think it is time to go.”
“We walked out and met up with many other Jews leaving the show,” he continued. “Never in my life have I felt so unsafe and so fearful of what I was witnessing.”