At a secret show at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles on Thursday, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock appeared together to address, and joke about, this week’s Hollywood Bowl attack.
As previously reported, Chappelle was on the mic at the Los Angeles venue early this week when a man rushed the stage and tackled him. The suspect, since identified as Isaiah Lee, was promptly arrested and initially charged with felony assault. He was claimed to have been carrying a “replica handgun with a large blade” inside it, per the Associated Press. The suspect is no longer facing the felony charge.
The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, shared quotes on Friday from the aforementioned Comedy Store show, attendees of which included Yasiin Bey and Kim Kardashian, among others.
Per Chappelle, his son embraced him and told him “Dad, I love you” after this week’s Hollywood Bowl incident. Chappelle also said he was able to speak directly with the suspect following the attack, with the comedian claiming he told him his actions were intended to bring attention to a relative who had been been forced out of her home as a result of gentrification. The THR report also cites Chappelle as having said the man exhibited signs of someone who was living with a mental health issue.
At one point in the evening, Rock—who previously invoked Will Smith’s Oscars slap in the immediate aftermath of the Hollywood Bowl incident—again brought up the widely discussed moment with a joking reference to Smith’s musical catalog.
“I got smacked by the softest n**** that ever rapped,” Rock said in response to Chappelle joking he “at least” got “smacked by someone of repute.”
See more here via THR.
Chappelle previously spoke out about the Hollywood Bowl incident and suspect, saying at a TMZ-reported afterparty he “felt good” about his friends stepping in to defend him.
In a statement from a rep for Chappelle’s production company, shared Wednesday, the incident was described as “unfortunate and unsettling,” albeit not something the comedian wanted to define his four-night comedy experience at the Los Angeles venue as part of the Netflix Is a Joke festival.
