Tinfoil Haturday: Did Dave Chappelle Get 'the Talk' Back in 2005?

Back in the early 2000s, there were two seemingly apocryphal stories about famous comedians who had been bouncing around comedy club green rooms for years: Bill Cosby was a rapist and Dave Chappelle had gotten “the talk.” We know at least one of those stories is true.

Remember back in 2005 when Comedy Central offered Dave Chapelle a staggering $50 million contract for two more seasons of the Chappelle Show, then he mysteriously disappeared to South Africa?

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As the legend goes, Chappelle got “the talk” as he was on the brink of mega-success. I’ve heard the story several ways. In the most creative version, a bunch of successful black comedians and entertainers, led by Oprah Winfrey, showed up in Chappelle’s bedroom at 4 a.m. and told him that if he wanted big-time money and success he was going to have to “toe the line” politically. In other words, he needed to go full libtard. Chapelle decided instead to go to South Africa without even telling his wife.

FACT-O-RAMA! Many comedians spend their careers working “the road” for $300 a night. They don’t typically walk away from $50 million.

Stories swirled that Chappelle had “gone crazy” and might be using drugs. He told Time magazine he was in South Africa on a “spiritual retreat” and that he bailed on the $50 million deal because he was questioning his work. He also said this:

You got to be careful of the company you keep. It’s hard to know how much to say. One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change. You have to have people around you that you can trust and aren’t just out for a meal ticket.

When Chappelle returned to the states, he left Hollywood and moved to a gated 39-acre piece of land in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which boasts a population of 3,739 people.

Chappelle then made his first TV appearance since his abrupt departure, on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006, where she asked him why he had bailed on $50 million, his wife, family, and career.

Chapelle seemed a little cagey toward Oprah. He talked about how entertainers seem to flip out “around the time when the career have — it seems as though they’re crossing over the next plateau.”

He mentioned Martin Lawrence’s situation, when he was waving a gun in public and yelling, “They’re trying to kill me!”

Did Lawrence get “the talk” as well?

FACT-O-RAMA! Chapelle discussed Martin Lawrence’s gun debacle on an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, stating “Let me ask you this: What is happening in Hollywood that a guy that tough would be on the street waving a gun, screaming, ‘They’re trying to kill me.’ What’s going on? What is happening in Hollywood? Nobody knows. The worst thing to call someone is crazy. It’s dismissive. These people are not crazy. They’re strong people. Maybe the environment is a little sick.”

When a reporter asked Martin Lawrence if he agreed with Chappelle’s assessment of Hollywood, Lawrence said, “No.”

“Would you say you lost your mind, sort of?” Oprah pressed Chappelle.

“No. Not exactly,” Chappelle replied. “I wasn’t crazy. But it’s incredibly stressful, and I felt like, in a lot of instances, I was deliberately being put through stress. Because, you know, when you’re a guy that generates money, people have a vested interest in controlling you.”

Roughly ten minutes into the interview, Chappelle mentioned people were trying to manipulate him into saying why he had left for South Africa, suggesting he tell the world he had pneumonia or claim he had writer’s block, both of which he denied. “It sounds like someone’s trying to put young Dave in a compromising position,” Chapelle says. Then he looks oddly at Oprah, shakes his head, and says “Uh-uh, Oprah.”

Chappelle lay low in Ohio until 2013, when he began his successful stand-up comedy comeback. But he didn’t go full libtard.

Chappelle makes jokes about everyone, and that includes the trans crowd. They aren’t known for having a thick skin or a sense of humor so naturally, they wanted Chappelle “canceled.”

A transamathingy at Netflix tweeted zher disdain about Chappelle’s comedy special, “The Closer,” claiming “jokes lead to violence against trans people.” You know — the usual whiny trans applesauce.

I work at @netflix. Yesterday we launched another Chappelle special where he attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness – all while trying to pit us against other marginalized groups. You're going to hear a lot of talk about "offense".

We are not offended 🧵

— Terra Field (@RainofTerra) October 7, 2021

WOKE-O-RAMA! Chapelle tells a story in “The Closer” about the time he let a trans person named “Daphne” open for him at a show in San Francisco. The trans crowd attacked Daphne for working with Chappelle. Daphne defended Chappelle, but the online backlash from the trans crowd was too much. Daphne committed suicide shortly thereafter. No trans people are known to have killed themselves over Chappelle’s jokes. They eat their own.

Despite intense criticism from the woke Twitter mob, Netflix decided to hire to Chappelle to produce four more comedy specials.

We may never know if Chappelle got “the talk,” but if he did, it didn’t work. He is arguably the funniest and most successful comedian of our time, and he is doing it his way.

You can watch the Chappelle/Oprah interview here. Watch the way he looks at her just after the 10:00 min mark and says, “Uh-uh, Oprah.”