Dave Chappelle: The Closer (2021) Movie Script
Thank you.
Everybody have a seat,
be comfortable, relax.
I got to tell you... let's go.
Thank you.
I need you guys to know something.
And I'm gonna tell you the truth,
and don't get freaked out.
This is going to be my last special
for a minute.
It is all good. Listen to me.
I did it in Detroit for that reason.
That's right.
You wanna know why?
'Cause I talked so much shit about
Detroit in the first special
I figured, I might as well,
do the last special here.
Sorry about that, by the way.
First of all, before I even start,
I'm gonna say that "I'm rich and famous."
And the only reason I say that
is 'cause the last 17 months were hell,
and I cannot imagine
what everybody went through.
Well, I'm happy to see you
and I'm happy you're well
and I hope everyone you love is okay.
I don't want you to worry about me,
I'm...
vaccinated, I...
got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
I got to admit,
that's probably the most
niggaish decision
I've made in a long time.
I walk in to the doc like,
"Give me the third best option."
I'll have what the homeless
people are having.
So far, so good.
And I know you probably heard on the news,
I did get coronavirus.
And it was something else.
Like, okay first of all, when the doctor
told me I had coronavirus
I got to tell you,
I was surprised how it made me feel.
I felt dirty.
I felt gross.
'Cause I've been walking around Texas
just touching door knobs and shit,
hands all moist.
Tipping niggas with cash.
"Here, take this to your family."
I must have killed
thousands of people.
Just trying
to get tonight's show together
so I hope you appreciate it
'cause a lot of niggas died
for me to get this one off.
I hadn't felt that dirty
in a long time.
Last time I can remember,
feeling dirty like that,
man, I must have been a little boy.
I was being molested by a preacher.
But don't feel bad for me,
I liked it.
I used to get a kick out of cumming
in that fellows face.
Well, he asked me to do it.
They make you quarantine.
I had to quarantine for ten days at
least.
They said "You're gonna have to stay
in the room," I didn't go nowhere.
And it started making me nuts,
'cause I would just sit in the room
and watch videos all day.
Now, do you know what I was watching?
And I hate to say this,
but there was a lot of videos
sadly, of Black people...
beating up Asians for no reason.
These attacks were unprovoked,
I couldn't believe it.
And I was sitting in the room
watching this shit,
it would stress me out.
I was stressed already
because the whole time
when you get coronavirus,
at least the first five days
you wait, and see
how sick you're gonna get.
And it turns out, and this is true...
I didn't get sick at all.
Not a cough, not a booger,
not a fever, nothing.
Look at me
I am the Magic Johnson of coronavirus.
I just sat in the crib
and got stronger all week.
But I was stressed, 'cause I kept watching
these videos of my beloved Black people
beating up my beloved Asian people,
and being so cruel.
And the whole time I watched those videos,
this is fucked up
but I couldn't help but feel like...
When I saw these brothers
beating these Asians up.
It's probably what's happening
inside of my body.
I didn't get sick.
I also saw a lot of videos of UFOs.
I mean, what the fuck has been going on
with that shit?
This niggas are here.
These UFOs keep coming to Earth
and it made me think of an idea
for a movie.
Sounds dumb, but hear me out.
In my movie idea
we find out that these aliens
are originally from Earth.
That they are from an ancient civilization
that achieved interstellar travel
and left the Earth
thousands of years ago.
Some other planet that they go to
and things go terrible
for them in the other planet
so they come back to Earth
and decide that they want to claim
the Earth for their very own.
It is a pretty good plotline?
Yeah!
I call it Space Jews.
Space Jews.
- We loved it!
- Alright.
It's going to get worse than that,
hang in there.
It is going to get way worse than
that.
Then I thought of an idea
for a children's book.
I actually wrote it.
It is coming out soon.
The book is designed to help parents,
teach their children about racism
which, if you're a parent you know
is an impossible concept
to teach to a child.
But I'm doing it.
The book is about
a big, strong beautiful Black man
with a benign,
regular-ass White name...
and he has a White speaking voice.
So whenever this motherfucker calls
to get a reservation at a restaurant,
he gets the reservation.
That name and that voice,
who could resist him?
Now I should tell you, this Black man
is literally an actual giant.
And he is a strong dude.
And when he shows up to them restaurants
they see that big giant Black dude
they say "You can't come in here."
And they call the police.
And then every installment of the
book
the police come,
and they always shoot him.
But remember, no,
remember this guy is a giant,
these bullets don't kill him,
they don't even hurt him.
They just break his heart.
It is called Clifford,
the Big Black Nigga, anyone?
This is my last special,
because I have an objective tonight.
I came here tonight...
because this body of work,
that I've done on Netflix
I'm going to complete.
All the questions you might have had
about all these jokes
I'd said in the last few years
I hope to answer tonight.
And I would like to start by addressing
the LBGTQ community, correct.
And I want every member
of the community to know
that I've come here tonight in peace.
And I hope to negotiate
the release of DaBaby.
Sad story!
DaBaby
was the number one streaming artist
until about a couple of weeks ago.
Took a nasty spill onstage,
and said some...
said some wild stuff
about the LBGTQ community
during a concert in Florida.
Now you know, I go hard in the paint
but even I saw that shit was like,
"God damn, DaBaby."
He pushed the button, didn't he?
He pushed the button.
Punched the LBGTQ community,
right in the AIDS.
Can't do that.
Can't do that.
But I do believe
and I'll make this point later
that the kid
made a very egregious mistake.
I will acknowledge that.
But, you know a lot of the LBGTQ community
doesn't know DaBaby's history,
he's a wild guy.
He once shot a nigga...
and killed him, in Walmart.
This is true, Google it.
DaBaby shot and killed a nigga in
Walmart in North Carolina.
Nothing bad happened to his career.
Do you see where I am going with
this?
In our country,
you can shoot and kill a nigga
but you better not hurt
a gay person's feelings.
And this is precisely the disparity
I wish to discuss.
I have a question for the audience
and this is a real question,
I am not joking around.
Is it possible, that a gay person
can be racist?
Yes! Yeah!
- Do you really think so?
- Yeah!
Of course it is possible.
Look at Mike Pence.
I am guessing,
but I bet you, he is gay.
- Yeah.
- My God.
And he is not pride parade gay either,
he is sad gay.
I feel bad for him.
He looks like one of them gays
that prays about it.
Jesus, please take these dirty feelings
out of my heart.
Please Jesus,
make these buttholes ugly to me.
I don't want
to keep on tasting these dicks.
Funny.
You guys are confusing your emotions.
You think I hate gay people
and what you're really seeing
is that I'm jealous of gay people.
I'm jealous,
I'm not the only Black person,
that feels this way.
We Blacks,
we look at the gay community and we go
"God damn it!
Look how well that movement is going."
"Look how well you are doing."
And we've been trapped in this predicament
for hundreds of years.
How the fuck
are you making that kind of progress?
I can't help but feel like
if slaves had baby oil
and booty shorts...
we might have been free
a hundred years sooner.
You know what I mean?
If Martin Luther King was like,
"I want everybody
to get up on them floats.
Get your bodies good and shiny."
I don't hate gay people at all,
I respect the shit out of you.
Well, not all of you.
I am not that fond of these newer
gays.
Too sensitive, too brittle.
Those aren't the gays that I grew up with,
I missed them old school gays, nigga.
Them Stonewall niggas,
them the ones that I respect.
They didn't take shit from anybody,
they fought for their freedom.
I respect that shit, I'm not even gay
and I want to be like a Stonewall
nigga.
Them old school, gangster gays.
Them glory hole niggas,
them the ones I like.
These new gays don't even know
what the glory hole is.
It's a hole in the wall,
that gay contractors build.
You want to know why
they put that hole in the wall?
I'll tell you,
there is no nice way to say it.
'Cause when they want
to have some fun
they will put their penises in that
hole
and hope for the best.
I respect that shit.
It's a lot of courage
on both sides of that hole nigga.
I'm not even gay
and I want to try that glory hole
out.
What if Martin Luther King
had to integrate the glory hole?
"I don't care if it is Black lips
back there or White lips back there
a mouth is a mouth.
A warm wet mouth."
I'm going all the way.
I got into a fight.
I almost got into a fight,
it is complicated.
I was in a bar in Austin, with my
wife
and it was during Covid,
and a woman came to our table
and she was maskless,
and this bitch came over, no mask,
all "H" words. "Hi, how are you?"
Droplets was coming out
of this bitch's face.
We all covered our drinks.
Ew! Baby, what are you doing?
Now I looked over the table that she came
from, and I peeped game.
The men at the table were filming me.
This happens when you're famous.
People will come over
and try to rattle your cage
and get you
to say something stupid or dumb
so that their buddies can film it
and get a video
of you embarrassing yourself.
And clearly I said,
"This is what is happening."
And these dumb motherfuckers thought,
it was my first rodeo.
Sadly it worked.
I ran right over there, I said...
I pointed right in the camera
I said, "You is a bitch-ass nigga
for doing this to me."
And the dude was shocked
that I said it. He said ""
And when he did like this,
I've seen all his fingernails
is painted and I realized like, "."
"This fellow is gay."
Yeah, you know how I talk.
I call everybody a bitch-ass nigga.
You know what I mean?
But that is not a right thing to do
if they're gay. You know what I mean?
And now I was in trouble
and not only that,
the motherfucker was huge.
He stood up, he was towering over me.
He must have been 6' 5",
a big White corn-fed
Texas homosexual,
this nigga was ready to fight.
And he started barking on me,
but I stood my ground, I wasn't scared.
How could I be scared?
This motherfucker's shirt was tied up
in a knot like this.
Fuck this guy.
Let's go, nigga, let's go.
I thought we were going
to come to blows.
I was ready and then
right when you think we would fight,
guess what he did?
He picked up his phone
and he called the police.
And this, this thing I am describing
is a major issue
that I have with that community.
Gay people are minorities,
until they need to be White again.
I'm being very brutally honest,
so we can solve this problem.
I'm telling you right now
a Black gay person
would have never done that to me.
'Cause a Black gay person knows,
when the police shows up
they're not going to care
who called 'em.
They don't show up like,
"Which one of you niggers is Clifford?"
We're all Clifford.
This happens far too often.
Another time, about six years ago,
there was a lesbian woman
that tried to sell a story
about me to TMZ.
Thank goodness, TMZ could see
right through the sham of that story.
This woman claimed
that I beat her up in a night club
because she was a lesbian.
That is fuckin' crazy.
Bitch, I didn't even know
you was a woman.
Thank God! TMZ didn't believe that
because I did beat the shit out of her,
I am not gonna lie.
It was her fault, I had no choice.
I came into the club
minding my own business
and a woman came up to me,
and she goes
"My God, Dave Chappelle."
And I was just being reciprocally nice.
"Hey, miss, how are you?"
Blah, blah, blah.
Benign talk, nothing to it.
And all of a sudden
this lesbian fellow stepped
between us.
"Hey nigga, that's my girl!"
I said, "Yo, my man, back up."
Like that.
She said, "I ain't backing up off shit,
nigga, that's my girl!"
I said, "Bro, you gonna have to give me
three feet, like this."
She said, "Stop calling me a man,
motherfucker."
- I am a woman."
- I said, "What?"
And then I looked deep
in this nigga's cheek bones.
And I said, "My God, you are a
woman."
This is too much for me
to even wrap my mind around
but I tell you what,
I un-balled my fist immediately
and I softened my posture
so that she would know,
she is in no danger.
I even changed the tone of my voice.
I said softly, sweetly,
like a pimp might say.
"Bitch, I'm 'bout to slap
the shit out of you."
I should have done it.
I wish I didn't say that.
She dropped that foot back,
she was in a perfect southpaw stance.
Her shoulders were angled correctly,
her head movement was good,
I said "No!
This bitch boxes for real."
She threw a wild hook at me
and I saw it coming from yesterday,
so I slipped it like this...
I had no choice, I had to go to
work.
I let that jab go,
you should have seen me go nigga.
I tenderized them titties
like chicken cutlets.
I whooped the toxic masculinity
out of that bitch.
That is why I don't go out no more.
Just trying to chill,
I'm just trying to live a peaceful life.
That's why I live in Ohio,
you know, I live in a little town in Ohio.
Must be like 3700 people,
small hippie town.
Culturally you might feel like,
like Ann Arbor to you.
You know what I mean?
Bunch of hippies and shit like that.
And niggas always ask me like,
"Dave, why do you live
in that hippie town?"
And I'd be embarrassed
to tell 'em the truth.
Well, you know why I live there?
Because Yellow Springs, Ohio
has the most beautiful women in the world.
And a lot of people
might disagree with me
but, you got to see them
for yourself, they're gorgeous.
But it all depends on what you're into.
You know what I mean?
I like White bitches with dirty feet.
If I had a strip club in Yellow Springs,
I would have called that shit "Strippies."
All naked hippies, all the time.
And I would only hire girls
with long titties
and long vagina head
that looks like they slept on it.
And I would keep a pile of dirt,
right next to the stage.
I'd come up like, "Bitch get your feet in
that dirt and get up there
and give those
people what they came to see."
"Chalk up, bitch."
Couple of years ago I was in Ohio,
at a shopping mall.
An old White lady... This is true,
she was following me
around the mall.
Which sounds paranoid,
but I'm sure she was following me.
Mean lady too.
You ever see a woman
with lines on her face?
That just tell you like...
Even if she's smiling,
it would look like it would hurt
the muscles in her face.
I knew she was following me,
'cause she was at places
that had nothing to do with her
I'd be looking around like,
"What is this old bitch doing in Gamestop
and Footlocker
and all the places I like to go?"
Every time I see her,
she'd just be looking mean on me.
And eventually I forgot about it.
So, then after, I am shopping
I go all the way to the back
of the parking lot,
I'm parked all the way in the back
and as soon as I open my car door
I hear a voice go,
"David Chappelle."
Just like that.
I didn't even have to look,
I knew it was her.
And I looked back and sure enough
there she was, that face.
To be honest with you,
she probably wasn't even that old.
She's probably around my age.
But she was a White woman,
this bitch looked terrible.
I'm going all the way.
I kept my cool, I was nice.
I said, "Hello, miss."
And she didn't say anything back,
all she said was
"I watch your comedy."
I said "."
And then she says,
this is true, she goes,
"Sounds to me...
like you, hate women."
I said, "Well, you know what, miss?
It's art."
You are free to interpret this art
however you like
but I can tell you
as the maker of this art
that I don't believe
that I feel that way.
And she said, "Well, I think..."
And I said, "Shut up, bitch!
Shut the fuck up!"
"Before I kill you
and put you in the trunk.
Ain't nobody around here."
I'm just kidding, I didn't say that.
I felt that way,
but that's not what I said.
I was more clever than that.
You know what I said?
And this is exactly what I said,
I said,
"Miss, before you finish that statement,
let me ask you a question.
Where did you see me?
Did you buy a ticket to a concert
I did, I doubt that.
Or, maybe you watched one of my specials
on Netflix.
Or... Or... Did I follow you to your car
and do my act?"
She said, "What?"
I said, "Keep it in the comments section,
bitch, this is real life, ta-ta."
And then I drove off.
And now I got to tell you
and this is gonna surprise
some people here, but not everybody.
People say things to me all the time
but what you don't know,
is it does affect me.
I think about it.
And that one bothered me a lot,
I was driving home,
couldn't stop thinking
about what this woman said
because she is not the first woman
that said that to me.
It's puzzling. You know what I mean?
Like, what could I possibly be saying...
that would make these bitches think,
I hate women.
Couldn't figure it out.
So, you know what I did?
I Googled the dictionary definition of a
feminist
just to make sure,
I was talking about the right thing.
And do you know, sir,
what the dictionary definition
of a feminist is?
I didn't either, listen to this.
Webster's defines a feminist
as a human being, not a woman,
a human being, that believes
in equal rights for women.
I was shocked,
'cause that is what that meant
'cause by that definition
I would consider myself a feminist,
and I didn't even know that at the time.
All these years,
I thought it meant frumpy dyke.
Well, that seems always talking
to be some... chick in overalls,
"Men are trying to rape us."
"Not you bitch, will you please..."
I know, look, listen, I support the
feminist movement, I do
in my own ways.
Well, you guys did the women's march,
I tried to go and support you
and none of my friends would go with
me.
I asked all the fellows,
none of them wanted to go.
I tried everything. "Come on y'all,
there's gonna be bitches there."
They was like, "Nope."
So what I did is,
I called my friend Anj.
Anj is a Black woman
who is a comedy writer and she's dope.
A matter of fact,
a matter of fact,
she's the only woman,
that I know personally
that pays her ex-husband alimony.
And she sounds just like a man
when she does it.
"Fuck that broke motherfucker"
and all that, she says all that shit.
So I hit Anj up, I hit her on the
text
and all I did, I texted. I said,
"Anj, are you going to the women's
march?"
And she texted me back,
and this is a real text, she said...
she said, "I hope
those White bitches get tear gassed."
There is a problem
in that feminist movement, isn't there?
From its inception in America
there has always been a racial
component.
When Susan B. Anthony
was having that meeting
and Sojourner Truth's
Black ass showed up.
Read your history books.
All the White women
asked Sojourner Truth not to speak.
They didn't conflate the issues
of women's rights and slavery.
But you know how Black bitches are,
so Sojourner Truth went up there anyway.
She did a famous speech,
she said "Ain't I a woman?"
"Ain't I a woman?"
That's right. And listen, listen, listen.
I supported the "Me Too" movement,
but the whole time, the whole time
I thought that the way
they handled it was stupid.
It was, it was White, it was like...
they were doing shit, like going to
the Golden Globes
and all of them would be like
"Let's all go to the Golden Globes
and wear black dresses.
And give these men
a piece of our minds."
Bitch, that is not gonna work.
You think Martin Luther King
is gonna be like,
"I want everybody to keep riding the bus,
but wear matching outfits."
You got to get off the bus and walk.
It's real talk.
A real talk, that was a silly
movement.
"I want everybody to wear
crochet pussy hats
so they know we are serious."
What the fuck was y'all doing?
And then I said something about it
in one of my specials
and all these women actresses
came after me.
I said, "Man,
fuck y'all too, you canceled.
I ain't jerking off
to none of your pictures again."
They were like,
"Who is he to tell us anything?"
I'll tell you exactly who I am.
I'm the one that got off the bus
and left $50 million
on the bus and walked.
I agreed with these women.
I just didn't agree
with what they were doing about it.
Right. Right. No, it was annoying as
fuck...
because if these women were serious,
you know what they would have done?
They all would have fired their
agents.
And they would have went
to the mailroom
of one of these big agencies
and found a woman
that was bustin' her hump in there
and said, "If you want to talk to us
then you have to talk to her."
And if they did that,
then she would be big,
and they would be big
and nobody would get fed to
Harvey Weinstein.
But did they do that?
- No!
- No.
Was that their idea? No.
Surprisingly it was mine.
What I think, the feminist movement needs
to be very successful...
is a male leader.
I'll do it.
I will. I will lead you women
to the promised land.
I will make sure
you will get equal pay for equal work.
I will make sure that nobody harasses you
or fucks with you on the job.
I will protect all of your interests.
And all that I ask for in return...
is that you suck my dick.
And now, we're right back to square one,
aren't we?
And now we get to the core
of the crisis.
What...
what is a woman?
What is that, in this day and time?
Is there even such a thing
as a woman or a man or anything?
Seems to be a question nowadays.
Now listen, women get mad at me
gay people get mad at me,
lesbians get mad at me,
but I'm gonna tell you right now,
and this is true...
these transgenders...
the niggas want me dead.
I've gone too far,
I've said too much.
But I got to tell you,
I'm very worried about it.
I'm not even joking with you.
Every time I come out onstage,
I be scared.
I be lookin' around
the crowd, searching.
For knuckles and Adam's apples
to see where the threats might be
coming from.
A nigga came up to me on the street
the other day.
He said, "Careful, Dave, they after you."
I said, "What?"
"One they, or many theys?"
Before I even say anything
about that community
you must know and I hope
you all feel the same way
I am not indifferent
to the suffering of someone else.
There's laws, the mean laws
in our country.
North Carolina passed a law once.
They said a person in North Carolina
must use the restroom
that corresponds with the gender
they were assigned
on their birth certificate.
No, no, no, no.
No, that is not a good law.
That is a mean law.
No American should have
to present a birth certificate
to take a shit at Walmart,
in Greensboro, North Carolina
where DaBaby shot and killed
a motherfucker.
You have to ask yourself,
if you're thinking about it,
who are these laws
designed to protect?
Like let's say they designed this law
to protect me,
my interests, transphobic comedian,
Dave Chappelle.
Let's say I'm in Walmart,
doing a little shopping with my family.
Now I should tell you
if that ever happens in real life,
you should know
my dreams didn't work out.
Well let's say
something goes horribly wrong
and there I'm in Walmart
with the poor Whites
rummaging around
for mediocre goods and services.
And then I got to go to the restroom.
So, I excuse myself from my family.
I go to the men's room.
Now I'm standing at the urinal,
taking a leak.
And this is what this law is gonna do.
And suddenly a woman
walks into the men's room.
I'm like, that's strange.
And then she stands
shoulder to shoulder
with me at the urinal, I'm gonna be like,
"Bitch, what's going on with you?"
And then she hikes her skirt up
and she pulls a real live,
meaty dick out!
What do you think I am going to say?
Thank God, she's in here with me.
At least now I know
my family is safe.
No, I'm not gonna feel that way at all,
I'm gonna feel very uncomfortable.
I would feel better if it was a man
with a vagina
that backed up
to the urinal next to me.
I wouldn't even think about that,
I'd just be like, "That's funny."
"This guy is peeing out of his butt
for some reason."
"My God, he must be a Veteran,
thank you for your service."
I'm not indifferent to people's suffering
'cause I know it's hard to be everybody.
We Blacks, we just got
our first big holiday in a long time.
Happy belated Juneteenth
to the Blacks.
Juneteenth is a strange holiday,
isn't it?
- Yes.
- It commemorates
when Black people in Texarkana area
of the country
first found out that they were free.
But remember, they were free
when they found out.
They just didn't know it yet.
Very interesting holiday.
You know, I learned something
This is a wild story.
I learned this past Juneteenth
of a story, this is true.
And it's that there was a Black man
who was in South Carolina
during slavery
who somehow got granted his freedom
by his so-called master.
And when his master granted him
the freedom
he also gave him a plot of land.
Now it turns out,
this brother was brilliant.
He had a good eye,
good knack for farming.
And he farmed this plot of land
very successfully
and made a lot of money,
and this is where the story gets crazy.
When he got all that money...
this nigga brought some slaves.
Have you ever heard this before?
This is a true story.
Not only was he a slave owner,
he became a slave breeder.
And employed tactics that were so
cruel
even White slave owners were like,
"Yo, my man."
He was a wild dude, but he did it
just because that's what successful people
did at the time.
He just wanted to be down,
what a fuckin' tragedy.
How can a person
that went through slavery
perpetuate the same evil
on a person that looks just like him.
It's mind blowing.
And shockingly,
they're making a movie about him.
Ironically... it is called Space Jews.
Space Jews.
The point of that story is
this person was invested
in a construct.
That was the construct
of successful people
and he just followed the roadmap
of successful people.
He followed what they called
"an incentive."
Now, everyone struggles
but I'm very invested
in the gender construct, personally.
'Cause I'm a man with kids,
and a wife, and
I like that warm, wet soft pussy
that my wife has.
This does not mean that I feel like
another point of view
can't exist.
I was doing a night club in Oakland,
16 years ago
and this was the first time
that the trans community
ever got mad at me that I knew about.
And then I was nobody,
I had just quit Chappelle Show.
It was like a nothing
hole in the wall club
and I was doing some transgender jokes
in Oakland, it was 16 years ago.
My pronoun game
was not as nice as it is today.
I went too far, I said things like
tranny and shit I didn't know these words
were bad, and a woman stood up
and just gave me the business.
Started screaming at me,
and I'm sure it was a woman.
But she kept calling me
transphobic and all this shit
I had never even heard these words before,
it was really weird.
I didn't trip, I just gazed
at Security
to look like, "Go on,
get that bitch out of here."
I kept it moving.
And then she went to the press.
The next day one
of the gay papers wrote
all of the same things she had said to me,
about me in the paper.
Misquoted the jokes,
and was calling me transphobic
you know, these words,
I had never heard them before but
every time that I talked with anybody
from the community since
they always repeat the talking points
from that article.
My least favorite of which being,
I hate this phrase
they say, "I was punching down on
them."
"Punching down",
what the fuck does that mean?
Now fast forward.
It is 2019.
And I am in a restaurant in Ohio,
very nice restaurant.
It's Thanksgiving week.
And to be honest,
it is not a very nice restaurant, but
it is a nice restaurant,
if you're a White person from Ohio
that has never been anywhere before.
Picture Chili's.
I'm sitting in the bar,
I'm having a drink by myself
and the only other person in the bar
is a woman, a couple of stools down.
And she was alone, and she was older,
and that made me feel sad,
'cause it was the holidays.
So, I told the bartender,
"Send that woman a drink on me."
Just trying to spread the cheer,
and I wish I didn't.
This woman wanted to talk.
She wasn't mean, she was nice,
but she just wanted to talk about shit
that you know, I mean a nigga
just trying to get drunk
don't want to hear about this bitch
remodeling in her bathroom.
And I'm sitting there,
trying to be polite.
Subway tiles? Word.
But then she hits a lick.
Piqued my interest.
She says, "My daughter is coming home
for the holidays."
Like, "That is great news,
I'm glad you're not going to be alone."
And then she goes on and on
about how great her daughter is.
I guess her daughter got a new agent
and she is out in Hollywood,
she's in movies and on television
and all this stuff
and as she's telling me this,
I'm thinking, this woman is so sweet.
She probably doesn't even know who I
am.
Or what I do for a living
because I know
what your daughter's
is out in Hollywood doing.
And then she goes,
"Would you like to see her picture?"
"Now I don't want to see
this woman's picture,
but what am I gonna do?"
I'm like, "Okay sure,
I'd love to see the picture."
And I grab the picture
and this is all I say, this is all I say,
she is very beautiful."
And as she puts the picture away
she... looks mean all of a sudden,
like she caught me in some kind of trap.
"What did that face mean?"
And then she goes, "She's transgender."
And I think to myself, "This bitch
does know who I am."
I really resented that trap
because that trap
doesn't let me be honest.
If I was honest,
I wouldn't have fallen for it.
I'd have just looked at the picture
like,
"Look at that big chiseled jawline,
that big thick Joe Rogan neck.
Is that a dude?
Is your daughter a man?"
Can't say that shit.
It's really annoying.
Fast forward,
now it's a couple of days later.
It's the Wednesday...
before the Thursday that's Thanksgiving,
and I'm in a totally different bar
and this bar, trust me,
is not a nice place.
It's foul, it's one of those bars
where the top shelf
should be under the sink.
This is where the poor Whites drink.
The Tiki torch Whites.
You know what I mean?
Them White people, they believe in "Q"
and they love Trump. You know what I
mean? Like Michigan White people.
I remember I was at this bar one time,
it was that kind of bar it is.
I was in there one time,
I was fucked up
and I turned around
to everybody in the bar
and go "Hey everybody, I am going to buy
everyone in the bar a round of drinks."
And all the motherfuckers
was like, "Hurrah!"
And the bartender knew I was drunk,
so she pulled me aside.
"Mr. Chappelle, are you sure about
that?"
That's going to be 16 dollars.
Tough time for the Whites.
And this was a holiday weekend.
You know what I mean?
These motherfuckers
were having a rootin' tootin' time.
They was in there partying,
making all them noises.
"Ooh! Yeow!"
You know all them noises
White people make before lynching?
They was doing all that shit.
I was drunk.
I looked over my shoulder,
I thought I was trippin'.
Guess who was in the bar?
I thought I was seeing things,
I looked across the room
and I saw...
the trans-bitch from the picture.
I couldn't believe it.
I said "What is a trans person,
doing in a place like this?
This is very dangerous behavior."
And she was with, two big, buff,
gay Black dudes.
I didn't know these dudes,
but I know they was gay.
If they had a dick in their mouth,
they wouldn't look any gayer
than they did just sitting there.
They had 1980s gay face.
You know what that is?
Remember in the '80s
when gay people looked surprised
all the time.
"Close your mouth, nigga,
what is surprising", you know what I mean?
But they was huge, they looked like
Jussie Smollett's trainers.
And I am thinking, "Man these
motherfuckers are in a lot of trouble."
So what I do is I stand up
and everybody in the bar likes me,
so I make a big show of it
to make sure that everyone can hear
me.
Now, I walk right up to her,
and I go
"Hey! I just met your mother
the other night
and she told me all the great things
you're doing in Hollywood.
And I cannot believe
that someone
from a podunk place like this
can achieve all that, I'm so proud
of you.
Welcome home."
And the whole bar said "Hurrah!"
And I said ""
"That ought to buy her some time."
You know what I mean?
A couple of more drinks
and these fellows are gonna start
asking her for some pussy,
she might not have.
And she was very gracious.
She said "Thank you so much",
and we shook hands
and as she was shaking my hand,
her face turned mean, like her mom's.
And she said, "Do you mind, not punching
down on my people?"
I don't like that.
Normally, I would've let it go,
but I was drunk.
I said, "What might you mean, bitch?"
I was careful to call her a bitch,
'cause I didn't want to blow her cover.
Turns out she wasn't hiding.
She was loud, she was proud.
She let me have it
in front of everybody.
Screaming at me, all the talking points
from that article.
You transphobic, this and that.
Kept clapping her hands
in my face.
"Let me tell you somethin'."
I said, "Where did you learn this from,
Black bitches?" She kept going,
"Let me tell you something, honey."
So annoying.
She kept calling transgenders, her
people.
Ain't that weird?
"My people this, my people that."
I said, "What do you mean, your
people?"
Were you all kidnapped in Transylvanian,
brought here as slaves?
She said, "My people have struggled
for decades, honey, decades."
And I looked at them
gay Black dudes, like.
"Is there anything
you niggas need to tell this bitch?
Clifford, Clifford?"
I am exaggerating,
she is actually a very nice person
and I'm cool with her now,
but boy, that shit got on my nerves.
And it got on my nerves because, whenever
someone says that to me
I know they have never seen me
for themselves, they just repeat
what they've heard.
Any of you, who have ever watched me
know
that I've never had a problem
with transgender people.
If you listen to what I'm saying, clearly
my problem
has always been with White people.
I've been arguing with the Whites
my entire career.
Just when I thought I had you guys
on the ropes
you changed all the rules.
"Yeah?"
- Yeah, motherfucker!
- "Well."
I am a girl now, nigger.
You must treat me as such.
"Call me a girl, nigger."
It's annoying as fuck.
No, no, go back, go back
tonight after the show,
watch every special I did on Netflix.
Listen to everything
I've ever said about that community.
I'll go through 'em.
I said, "How much do I have to participate
in your self image?"
I said, "You shouldn't discuss this
in front of Black people."
I said, "I know niggas in Brooklyn
that wear high heels just to feel safe."
I asked you "Why is it easier
for Bruce Jenner
to change his gender
than it is for Cassius Clay
to change his name?"
If you listen to what I'm saying,
I'm not even talking about them,
I'm talking about us
and "they don't listen."
It's very annoying.
And they have canceled people,
more powerful than me.
They canceled J.K. Rowling, my God.
J.K. Rowling wrote
all the Harry Potter books by herself.
She sold so many books,
the Bible worries about her.
And they canceled it because,
she said in an interview
and this is not exactly what she said,
but effectually she said
that gender was a fact.
And then the trans community
got mad as shit,
they started calling her a TERF.
I didn't even know,
what the fuck that was.
But I know that trans people make up words
to win arguments.
So I looked it up.
TERF is an acronym.
It stands for Trans-exclusionary
radical feminist.
This is a real thing,
this is a group of women...
that hate transgender.
They don't hate transgender women but
they look at trans women
the way we Blacks
might look at Black face.
It offends them like, "This bitch
is doing an impression of me."
Now I shouldn't speak on this
because I'm not a woman
nor am I a trans.
But as we've established...
I am a feminist.
That's right.
I'm team TERF.
I agree.
I agree, man.
Gender is a fact.
You have to look at it
from a woman's perspective.
Look at it like this,
Caitlyn Jenner
whom I have met, wonderful person.
Caitlyn Jenner... was voted,
woman of the year.
Her first year as a woman.
Ain't that something?
Beat every bitch in Detroit.
She's better than all of you.
Never even had a period,
ain't that something?
I'd be mad as shit if I was a woman.
I'd be mad if I was me.
If I was in the BET awards,
sitting there and they're like
"And the winner for
nigger of the year... Eminem."
My man.
Gender is a fact, this is a fact.
Every human being in this room,
every human being on Earth
had to pass through the legs of a woman
to be on Earth.
That is a fact.
Now...
I am not saying that to say,
that trans women aren't women.
I'm just sayin,
that those pussies that they got...
You know what I mean?
I'm not saying it is not pussy,
but that's like
Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy.
You know what I mean?
It tastes like pussy
but that's not quite what it is, is it?
It's not blood, that is beet juice.
Buddy, I'm in trouble now.
Before I go, I want
to share this story with you
because it is important
to this point.
I want your community to know
that one of the coolest people I ever met
was a transgender woman.
And this is not a man that I knew
that became a woman, this woman was
trans when I met her.
Lived in San Francisco,
Daphne Dwarman is the name.
I would do 18 shows in the Bay Area
sometimes in Oakland
and Dirty Hood night club
and she would be there,
white trans woman, laughing
loud and hard, at everything I said.
Especially the trans jokes,
very puzzling...
because she was obviously trans.
And one night
after one of the shows I met her.
And what it was, turns out
it was her dream to be a comedian.
And I was her hero.
It was very moving.
I could not dislike somebody
that felt that way about me.
We became fast friends.
And when I made that
special Sticks and Stones
right as it was coming out,
I happened to be in San Francisco
and I wanted to do a show.
But I needed an opening act,
and I remembered...
that trans woman I had met,
so I called her on the phone.
And I called her myself,
I said, "Hey Daphne,
this is Dave Chappelle."
She couldn't believe it.
And I go, "I'm in San Francisco."
And then she started saying
a bunch of wild stuff, I was like
"Relax now,
I don't want any pussy, I was...
I'm just calling, because I'm doing
a show and I need an opening act.
And I was wondering
if you'd open the show?"
And she was like, "Fuck, yeah."
Now... I didn't know this at the time
but this woman had only done
stand up comedy eight times in her life.
This was little to no experience
and now she's about to open a show
for what many call the GOAT.
She's an amateur in stature, but
in practice,
she was very professional.
She showed up early,
which is something I appreciate
'cause I like people to be on time.
She was dressed
to the motherfuckin' nines, I mean,
I'm transphobic and even I was like,
"You look nice."
Went up on the stage with all the swag
of a professional comedian,
grabbed that mic
and walked right down the middle
and looked at the crowd like a gangster.
Man, you should have seen her work.
This bitch bombed
for 45 minutes, straight.
And I'm not exaggerating, young man.
That show was terrible.
Stunk.
Stunk.
And then she brings me on,
and you know,
I was like a glass of water
after a handful of salt.
The crowd was happy to see me.
I was killing it.
But here is what impressed me.
Any other comedian I've ever seen,
if they had bombed as bad as she did,
would have snuck out of the back
of the theatre and went home and cried
or something, but she didn't do that.
Not only did she not leave,
she found a seat, right up in front.
You know, when a new comedian
watches an experienced comedian
in comedy we call this "taking class."
And this bitch took my whole class,
she sat up there
and was laughing as hard
as she always laughs
as if nothing bad
had even happened to her.
And I saw her show.
Something bad happened to her.
She was drunk.
So she starts talking to me,
while I'm onstage
but the way a person would talk
to a television when they were alone.
She was talking to me like that.
That didn't bother me
'cause I knew her.
But the crowd didn't like that shit
at all 'cause she sucked.
And a guy in the back of the room
stood up
and Daphne's hair
was dyed blonde at the time
and the guy screamed out,
and his energy felt wild as fuck.
He said, "Hey Daphne!"
and everybody got clamped,
they got tense.
We didn't know who was a heckler
or active shooter, and...
he said,
"Does the carpet match the drapes?"
It was fucked up.
The whole crowd kind of groaned,
'cause it was so like, mean.
Everybody groaned, except for Daphne.
She kind of laughed, which was weird.
And she didn't even look all the way
back.
She said, "Sir, I don't have carpets
I have hardwood floors."
Just like that.
Just like that.
Boy, when she said that shit,
it blew the roof of the place.
Cut through all the tension,
with that one joke.
She had made up for 45 minutes
of a stinker of a show.
And after that, she could do no
wrong.
And I kept on rocking,
and she kept on talking to me.
And then the show
became something cooler than a show.
It became like a conversation
between a Black man
and a White trans woman
and we started
getting to the bottom of shit.
All of them questions that you think about
that you'd be afraid to ask,
I was just asking them
and she was answering them
and her answers were funny as shit.
The crowd was falling out of their
chairs
and at the end of the show,
I go, "Well, Daphne"... I said
"Well, that was fun."
I go, "I love you to death,
but I have no fuckin' idea
what you're talking about."
The whole crow laughed
except for Daphne.
Man, she looks at me
like I'm not her friend anymore.
Like I'm something bigger than me,
like I'm the whole world in a guy.
Then she said, "I don't need you
to understand me."
I said, "What?"
She said, "I just need
you to believe..."
Just like that she goes,
"that I'm having a human experience."
And when she said it
the whole crowd kind of gasped.
And I gave the Fight Club look.
I said, "I believe you, bitch."
Because she didn't say anything
about pronouns.
She didn't say anything
about me being in trouble.
She said, "Just believe I'm a person
and I'm going through it."
I know I believe you,
because it takes one to know one.
Then I told the crowd "Good night."
And they started going crazy
and before the applause
gets to it's crescendo
I was saying, "Don't forget
my opening act, Daphne."
And the crowd stood up.
And I looked at her,
tears came out of her eyes
she couldn't believe it was
happening.
I couldn't believe it was happening
'cause her show stunk.
And it was a great night.
And I remember, the late great Paul
Mooney was there
bunch of flyers, comedy niggas was
there.
And we all went backstage
and was just drinking
and talking shit and laughing
and Daphne stole the room,
she had everyone cracking up.
Spinning the yarn, telling us all these
crazy stories about shit, she'd be into.
We all laughing real hard,
and there she is telling us
and everyone is laughing.
I'm looking around, I'm like,
"My God, she is funny."
I pulled her aside, I said,
"You're hilarious.
I didn't know that
when you were onstage."
I said, "You're doing some things wrong
but I can help you."
I said, "Anytime I'm in San Francisco
why don't you open the show for me
and I'll just try
to give you some pointers
and see if you can work
this thing out."
She said, "Are you serious?"
I was like, "Yeah."
And she grabbed me real tight,
hugged me, squeezed me.
And I pushed her off violently,
'cause I'm transphobic.
I said "Boundaries, bitch!"
When Sticks and Stones came out...
a lot of people in the trans community
were furious with me and
apparently they dragged me on
Twitter.
I don't give a fuck,
'cause Twitter is not a real place.
And the hardest thing for a person
to do
is go against their tribe
if they disagree with their tribe,
but Daphne did that for me.
She wrote a tweet that was very beautiful
and what she said was
and it is almost exactly what she
said.
She said, "Punching down on someone,
requires you to think less of them
and I know him, and he doesn't.
He doesn't punch up,
he doesn't punch down
he punches lines, and he is a master
at his craft." That's what she said.
Beautiful tweet, beautiful friend,
it took a lot of heart
to defend me like that,
and when she did that
the trans community
dragged that bitch all over Twitter.
For days, they was going in on her,
and she was holding her own
'cause she's funny.
But six days after that wonderful night
I described to you
my friend Daphne killed herself.
Yeah, this is a true story,
my heart was broken.
Yeah, it wasn't the jokes.
I don't know if was them dragging
or I don't know
what was going on in her life
but I bet dragging her didn't help.
I was very angry at them,
I was very angry at her.
I felt like Daphne lied to me.
She always said,
she identified as a woman.
And then one day she goes up
to the roof of her building
and jumps off and kills herself.
Clearly...
only a man
would do some gangster shit like that.
Hear me out.
As hard as it is to hear a joke like
that
I'm telling you right now,
Daphne would have loved that joke.
That is why she was my friend.
I was reading her obituary
and I found out,
she was survived by a daughter.
And the moment I found that out,
and this is true
Anderson Cooper from CNN texted me.
And all he says, it's very nice,
he said,
"I'm sorry to hear
about your friend."
And I texted him right back.
"New phone, who this?"
He said, "It's Anderson Cooper."
I said, "Anderson, look
I need to find her family."
And he texted me right back
with all the phone numbers
and all this information.
I say this to say, if you ever want to
know about anything gay
call Anderson Cooper from CNN.
This nigga is faster than Google.
What I did is,
I got in touch with her family
and I started a trust fund
for her daughter
'cause I know that is all
she ever really cared about.
And I don't know
what the trans community did for her
but I don't care,
because I feel like
she wasn't their tribe,
she was mine.
She was a comedian in her soul.
The daughter is very young,
but I hope to be alive
when she turns 21
'cause I'm going
to give her this money myself.
And by then,
by then, I'll be ready to have the
conversation
that I'm not ready to have today.
But I'll tell that little girl,
"Young lady,
I knew your father...
and he was a wonderful woman."
Empathy is not gay.
Empathy is not Black.
Empathy is bi-sexual.
It must go both ways.
It must go both ways.
Remember, taking a man's livelihood
is akin to killing him.
I'm begging you, please do not abort
DaBaby.
Kevin Hart dreamt his entire life of
hosting the Oscars
and when he finally got the job they just
took it!
It's not fair.
They didn't kill him,
Kevin is a strong guy.
But I'm sure
it broke old Clifford's heart.
It's over.
It is over.
I'm not telling another joke
about you
until we are both sure,
that we are laughing together.
I'm telling you this is done.
I'm done talking about it.
All I ask from your community,
with all humility
will you please stop
punching down on my people?
Thank you very much and good night.
Everybody have a seat,
be comfortable, relax.
I got to tell you... let's go.
Thank you.
I need you guys to know something.
And I'm gonna tell you the truth,
and don't get freaked out.
This is going to be my last special
for a minute.
It is all good. Listen to me.
I did it in Detroit for that reason.
That's right.
You wanna know why?
'Cause I talked so much shit about
Detroit in the first special
I figured, I might as well,
do the last special here.
Sorry about that, by the way.
First of all, before I even start,
I'm gonna say that "I'm rich and famous."
And the only reason I say that
is 'cause the last 17 months were hell,
and I cannot imagine
what everybody went through.
Well, I'm happy to see you
and I'm happy you're well
and I hope everyone you love is okay.
I don't want you to worry about me,
I'm...
vaccinated, I...
got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
I got to admit,
that's probably the most
niggaish decision
I've made in a long time.
I walk in to the doc like,
"Give me the third best option."
I'll have what the homeless
people are having.
So far, so good.
And I know you probably heard on the news,
I did get coronavirus.
And it was something else.
Like, okay first of all, when the doctor
told me I had coronavirus
I got to tell you,
I was surprised how it made me feel.
I felt dirty.
I felt gross.
'Cause I've been walking around Texas
just touching door knobs and shit,
hands all moist.
Tipping niggas with cash.
"Here, take this to your family."
I must have killed
thousands of people.
Just trying
to get tonight's show together
so I hope you appreciate it
'cause a lot of niggas died
for me to get this one off.
I hadn't felt that dirty
in a long time.
Last time I can remember,
feeling dirty like that,
man, I must have been a little boy.
I was being molested by a preacher.
But don't feel bad for me,
I liked it.
I used to get a kick out of cumming
in that fellows face.
Well, he asked me to do it.
They make you quarantine.
I had to quarantine for ten days at
least.
They said "You're gonna have to stay
in the room," I didn't go nowhere.
And it started making me nuts,
'cause I would just sit in the room
and watch videos all day.
Now, do you know what I was watching?
And I hate to say this,
but there was a lot of videos
sadly, of Black people...
beating up Asians for no reason.
These attacks were unprovoked,
I couldn't believe it.
And I was sitting in the room
watching this shit,
it would stress me out.
I was stressed already
because the whole time
when you get coronavirus,
at least the first five days
you wait, and see
how sick you're gonna get.
And it turns out, and this is true...
I didn't get sick at all.
Not a cough, not a booger,
not a fever, nothing.
Look at me
I am the Magic Johnson of coronavirus.
I just sat in the crib
and got stronger all week.
But I was stressed, 'cause I kept watching
these videos of my beloved Black people
beating up my beloved Asian people,
and being so cruel.
And the whole time I watched those videos,
this is fucked up
but I couldn't help but feel like...
When I saw these brothers
beating these Asians up.
It's probably what's happening
inside of my body.
I didn't get sick.
I also saw a lot of videos of UFOs.
I mean, what the fuck has been going on
with that shit?
This niggas are here.
These UFOs keep coming to Earth
and it made me think of an idea
for a movie.
Sounds dumb, but hear me out.
In my movie idea
we find out that these aliens
are originally from Earth.
That they are from an ancient civilization
that achieved interstellar travel
and left the Earth
thousands of years ago.
Some other planet that they go to
and things go terrible
for them in the other planet
so they come back to Earth
and decide that they want to claim
the Earth for their very own.
It is a pretty good plotline?
Yeah!
I call it Space Jews.
Space Jews.
- We loved it!
- Alright.
It's going to get worse than that,
hang in there.
It is going to get way worse than
that.
Then I thought of an idea
for a children's book.
I actually wrote it.
It is coming out soon.
The book is designed to help parents,
teach their children about racism
which, if you're a parent you know
is an impossible concept
to teach to a child.
But I'm doing it.
The book is about
a big, strong beautiful Black man
with a benign,
regular-ass White name...
and he has a White speaking voice.
So whenever this motherfucker calls
to get a reservation at a restaurant,
he gets the reservation.
That name and that voice,
who could resist him?
Now I should tell you, this Black man
is literally an actual giant.
And he is a strong dude.
And when he shows up to them restaurants
they see that big giant Black dude
they say "You can't come in here."
And they call the police.
And then every installment of the
book
the police come,
and they always shoot him.
But remember, no,
remember this guy is a giant,
these bullets don't kill him,
they don't even hurt him.
They just break his heart.
It is called Clifford,
the Big Black Nigga, anyone?
This is my last special,
because I have an objective tonight.
I came here tonight...
because this body of work,
that I've done on Netflix
I'm going to complete.
All the questions you might have had
about all these jokes
I'd said in the last few years
I hope to answer tonight.
And I would like to start by addressing
the LBGTQ community, correct.
And I want every member
of the community to know
that I've come here tonight in peace.
And I hope to negotiate
the release of DaBaby.
Sad story!
DaBaby
was the number one streaming artist
until about a couple of weeks ago.
Took a nasty spill onstage,
and said some...
said some wild stuff
about the LBGTQ community
during a concert in Florida.
Now you know, I go hard in the paint
but even I saw that shit was like,
"God damn, DaBaby."
He pushed the button, didn't he?
He pushed the button.
Punched the LBGTQ community,
right in the AIDS.
Can't do that.
Can't do that.
But I do believe
and I'll make this point later
that the kid
made a very egregious mistake.
I will acknowledge that.
But, you know a lot of the LBGTQ community
doesn't know DaBaby's history,
he's a wild guy.
He once shot a nigga...
and killed him, in Walmart.
This is true, Google it.
DaBaby shot and killed a nigga in
Walmart in North Carolina.
Nothing bad happened to his career.
Do you see where I am going with
this?
In our country,
you can shoot and kill a nigga
but you better not hurt
a gay person's feelings.
And this is precisely the disparity
I wish to discuss.
I have a question for the audience
and this is a real question,
I am not joking around.
Is it possible, that a gay person
can be racist?
Yes! Yeah!
- Do you really think so?
- Yeah!
Of course it is possible.
Look at Mike Pence.
I am guessing,
but I bet you, he is gay.
- Yeah.
- My God.
And he is not pride parade gay either,
he is sad gay.
I feel bad for him.
He looks like one of them gays
that prays about it.
Jesus, please take these dirty feelings
out of my heart.
Please Jesus,
make these buttholes ugly to me.
I don't want
to keep on tasting these dicks.
Funny.
You guys are confusing your emotions.
You think I hate gay people
and what you're really seeing
is that I'm jealous of gay people.
I'm jealous,
I'm not the only Black person,
that feels this way.
We Blacks,
we look at the gay community and we go
"God damn it!
Look how well that movement is going."
"Look how well you are doing."
And we've been trapped in this predicament
for hundreds of years.
How the fuck
are you making that kind of progress?
I can't help but feel like
if slaves had baby oil
and booty shorts...
we might have been free
a hundred years sooner.
You know what I mean?
If Martin Luther King was like,
"I want everybody
to get up on them floats.
Get your bodies good and shiny."
I don't hate gay people at all,
I respect the shit out of you.
Well, not all of you.
I am not that fond of these newer
gays.
Too sensitive, too brittle.
Those aren't the gays that I grew up with,
I missed them old school gays, nigga.
Them Stonewall niggas,
them the ones that I respect.
They didn't take shit from anybody,
they fought for their freedom.
I respect that shit, I'm not even gay
and I want to be like a Stonewall
nigga.
Them old school, gangster gays.
Them glory hole niggas,
them the ones I like.
These new gays don't even know
what the glory hole is.
It's a hole in the wall,
that gay contractors build.
You want to know why
they put that hole in the wall?
I'll tell you,
there is no nice way to say it.
'Cause when they want
to have some fun
they will put their penises in that
hole
and hope for the best.
I respect that shit.
It's a lot of courage
on both sides of that hole nigga.
I'm not even gay
and I want to try that glory hole
out.
What if Martin Luther King
had to integrate the glory hole?
"I don't care if it is Black lips
back there or White lips back there
a mouth is a mouth.
A warm wet mouth."
I'm going all the way.
I got into a fight.
I almost got into a fight,
it is complicated.
I was in a bar in Austin, with my
wife
and it was during Covid,
and a woman came to our table
and she was maskless,
and this bitch came over, no mask,
all "H" words. "Hi, how are you?"
Droplets was coming out
of this bitch's face.
We all covered our drinks.
Ew! Baby, what are you doing?
Now I looked over the table that she came
from, and I peeped game.
The men at the table were filming me.
This happens when you're famous.
People will come over
and try to rattle your cage
and get you
to say something stupid or dumb
so that their buddies can film it
and get a video
of you embarrassing yourself.
And clearly I said,
"This is what is happening."
And these dumb motherfuckers thought,
it was my first rodeo.
Sadly it worked.
I ran right over there, I said...
I pointed right in the camera
I said, "You is a bitch-ass nigga
for doing this to me."
And the dude was shocked
that I said it. He said ""
And when he did like this,
I've seen all his fingernails
is painted and I realized like, "."
"This fellow is gay."
Yeah, you know how I talk.
I call everybody a bitch-ass nigga.
You know what I mean?
But that is not a right thing to do
if they're gay. You know what I mean?
And now I was in trouble
and not only that,
the motherfucker was huge.
He stood up, he was towering over me.
He must have been 6' 5",
a big White corn-fed
Texas homosexual,
this nigga was ready to fight.
And he started barking on me,
but I stood my ground, I wasn't scared.
How could I be scared?
This motherfucker's shirt was tied up
in a knot like this.
Fuck this guy.
Let's go, nigga, let's go.
I thought we were going
to come to blows.
I was ready and then
right when you think we would fight,
guess what he did?
He picked up his phone
and he called the police.
And this, this thing I am describing
is a major issue
that I have with that community.
Gay people are minorities,
until they need to be White again.
I'm being very brutally honest,
so we can solve this problem.
I'm telling you right now
a Black gay person
would have never done that to me.
'Cause a Black gay person knows,
when the police shows up
they're not going to care
who called 'em.
They don't show up like,
"Which one of you niggers is Clifford?"
We're all Clifford.
This happens far too often.
Another time, about six years ago,
there was a lesbian woman
that tried to sell a story
about me to TMZ.
Thank goodness, TMZ could see
right through the sham of that story.
This woman claimed
that I beat her up in a night club
because she was a lesbian.
That is fuckin' crazy.
Bitch, I didn't even know
you was a woman.
Thank God! TMZ didn't believe that
because I did beat the shit out of her,
I am not gonna lie.
It was her fault, I had no choice.
I came into the club
minding my own business
and a woman came up to me,
and she goes
"My God, Dave Chappelle."
And I was just being reciprocally nice.
"Hey, miss, how are you?"
Blah, blah, blah.
Benign talk, nothing to it.
And all of a sudden
this lesbian fellow stepped
between us.
"Hey nigga, that's my girl!"
I said, "Yo, my man, back up."
Like that.
She said, "I ain't backing up off shit,
nigga, that's my girl!"
I said, "Bro, you gonna have to give me
three feet, like this."
She said, "Stop calling me a man,
motherfucker."
- I am a woman."
- I said, "What?"
And then I looked deep
in this nigga's cheek bones.
And I said, "My God, you are a
woman."
This is too much for me
to even wrap my mind around
but I tell you what,
I un-balled my fist immediately
and I softened my posture
so that she would know,
she is in no danger.
I even changed the tone of my voice.
I said softly, sweetly,
like a pimp might say.
"Bitch, I'm 'bout to slap
the shit out of you."
I should have done it.
I wish I didn't say that.
She dropped that foot back,
she was in a perfect southpaw stance.
Her shoulders were angled correctly,
her head movement was good,
I said "No!
This bitch boxes for real."
She threw a wild hook at me
and I saw it coming from yesterday,
so I slipped it like this...
I had no choice, I had to go to
work.
I let that jab go,
you should have seen me go nigga.
I tenderized them titties
like chicken cutlets.
I whooped the toxic masculinity
out of that bitch.
That is why I don't go out no more.
Just trying to chill,
I'm just trying to live a peaceful life.
That's why I live in Ohio,
you know, I live in a little town in Ohio.
Must be like 3700 people,
small hippie town.
Culturally you might feel like,
like Ann Arbor to you.
You know what I mean?
Bunch of hippies and shit like that.
And niggas always ask me like,
"Dave, why do you live
in that hippie town?"
And I'd be embarrassed
to tell 'em the truth.
Well, you know why I live there?
Because Yellow Springs, Ohio
has the most beautiful women in the world.
And a lot of people
might disagree with me
but, you got to see them
for yourself, they're gorgeous.
But it all depends on what you're into.
You know what I mean?
I like White bitches with dirty feet.
If I had a strip club in Yellow Springs,
I would have called that shit "Strippies."
All naked hippies, all the time.
And I would only hire girls
with long titties
and long vagina head
that looks like they slept on it.
And I would keep a pile of dirt,
right next to the stage.
I'd come up like, "Bitch get your feet in
that dirt and get up there
and give those
people what they came to see."
"Chalk up, bitch."
Couple of years ago I was in Ohio,
at a shopping mall.
An old White lady... This is true,
she was following me
around the mall.
Which sounds paranoid,
but I'm sure she was following me.
Mean lady too.
You ever see a woman
with lines on her face?
That just tell you like...
Even if she's smiling,
it would look like it would hurt
the muscles in her face.
I knew she was following me,
'cause she was at places
that had nothing to do with her
I'd be looking around like,
"What is this old bitch doing in Gamestop
and Footlocker
and all the places I like to go?"
Every time I see her,
she'd just be looking mean on me.
And eventually I forgot about it.
So, then after, I am shopping
I go all the way to the back
of the parking lot,
I'm parked all the way in the back
and as soon as I open my car door
I hear a voice go,
"David Chappelle."
Just like that.
I didn't even have to look,
I knew it was her.
And I looked back and sure enough
there she was, that face.
To be honest with you,
she probably wasn't even that old.
She's probably around my age.
But she was a White woman,
this bitch looked terrible.
I'm going all the way.
I kept my cool, I was nice.
I said, "Hello, miss."
And she didn't say anything back,
all she said was
"I watch your comedy."
I said "."
And then she says,
this is true, she goes,
"Sounds to me...
like you, hate women."
I said, "Well, you know what, miss?
It's art."
You are free to interpret this art
however you like
but I can tell you
as the maker of this art
that I don't believe
that I feel that way.
And she said, "Well, I think..."
And I said, "Shut up, bitch!
Shut the fuck up!"
"Before I kill you
and put you in the trunk.
Ain't nobody around here."
I'm just kidding, I didn't say that.
I felt that way,
but that's not what I said.
I was more clever than that.
You know what I said?
And this is exactly what I said,
I said,
"Miss, before you finish that statement,
let me ask you a question.
Where did you see me?
Did you buy a ticket to a concert
I did, I doubt that.
Or, maybe you watched one of my specials
on Netflix.
Or... Or... Did I follow you to your car
and do my act?"
She said, "What?"
I said, "Keep it in the comments section,
bitch, this is real life, ta-ta."
And then I drove off.
And now I got to tell you
and this is gonna surprise
some people here, but not everybody.
People say things to me all the time
but what you don't know,
is it does affect me.
I think about it.
And that one bothered me a lot,
I was driving home,
couldn't stop thinking
about what this woman said
because she is not the first woman
that said that to me.
It's puzzling. You know what I mean?
Like, what could I possibly be saying...
that would make these bitches think,
I hate women.
Couldn't figure it out.
So, you know what I did?
I Googled the dictionary definition of a
feminist
just to make sure,
I was talking about the right thing.
And do you know, sir,
what the dictionary definition
of a feminist is?
I didn't either, listen to this.
Webster's defines a feminist
as a human being, not a woman,
a human being, that believes
in equal rights for women.
I was shocked,
'cause that is what that meant
'cause by that definition
I would consider myself a feminist,
and I didn't even know that at the time.
All these years,
I thought it meant frumpy dyke.
Well, that seems always talking
to be some... chick in overalls,
"Men are trying to rape us."
"Not you bitch, will you please..."
I know, look, listen, I support the
feminist movement, I do
in my own ways.
Well, you guys did the women's march,
I tried to go and support you
and none of my friends would go with
me.
I asked all the fellows,
none of them wanted to go.
I tried everything. "Come on y'all,
there's gonna be bitches there."
They was like, "Nope."
So what I did is,
I called my friend Anj.
Anj is a Black woman
who is a comedy writer and she's dope.
A matter of fact,
a matter of fact,
she's the only woman,
that I know personally
that pays her ex-husband alimony.
And she sounds just like a man
when she does it.
"Fuck that broke motherfucker"
and all that, she says all that shit.
So I hit Anj up, I hit her on the
text
and all I did, I texted. I said,
"Anj, are you going to the women's
march?"
And she texted me back,
and this is a real text, she said...
she said, "I hope
those White bitches get tear gassed."
There is a problem
in that feminist movement, isn't there?
From its inception in America
there has always been a racial
component.
When Susan B. Anthony
was having that meeting
and Sojourner Truth's
Black ass showed up.
Read your history books.
All the White women
asked Sojourner Truth not to speak.
They didn't conflate the issues
of women's rights and slavery.
But you know how Black bitches are,
so Sojourner Truth went up there anyway.
She did a famous speech,
she said "Ain't I a woman?"
"Ain't I a woman?"
That's right. And listen, listen, listen.
I supported the "Me Too" movement,
but the whole time, the whole time
I thought that the way
they handled it was stupid.
It was, it was White, it was like...
they were doing shit, like going to
the Golden Globes
and all of them would be like
"Let's all go to the Golden Globes
and wear black dresses.
And give these men
a piece of our minds."
Bitch, that is not gonna work.
You think Martin Luther King
is gonna be like,
"I want everybody to keep riding the bus,
but wear matching outfits."
You got to get off the bus and walk.
It's real talk.
A real talk, that was a silly
movement.
"I want everybody to wear
crochet pussy hats
so they know we are serious."
What the fuck was y'all doing?
And then I said something about it
in one of my specials
and all these women actresses
came after me.
I said, "Man,
fuck y'all too, you canceled.
I ain't jerking off
to none of your pictures again."
They were like,
"Who is he to tell us anything?"
I'll tell you exactly who I am.
I'm the one that got off the bus
and left $50 million
on the bus and walked.
I agreed with these women.
I just didn't agree
with what they were doing about it.
Right. Right. No, it was annoying as
fuck...
because if these women were serious,
you know what they would have done?
They all would have fired their
agents.
And they would have went
to the mailroom
of one of these big agencies
and found a woman
that was bustin' her hump in there
and said, "If you want to talk to us
then you have to talk to her."
And if they did that,
then she would be big,
and they would be big
and nobody would get fed to
Harvey Weinstein.
But did they do that?
- No!
- No.
Was that their idea? No.
Surprisingly it was mine.
What I think, the feminist movement needs
to be very successful...
is a male leader.
I'll do it.
I will. I will lead you women
to the promised land.
I will make sure
you will get equal pay for equal work.
I will make sure that nobody harasses you
or fucks with you on the job.
I will protect all of your interests.
And all that I ask for in return...
is that you suck my dick.
And now, we're right back to square one,
aren't we?
And now we get to the core
of the crisis.
What...
what is a woman?
What is that, in this day and time?
Is there even such a thing
as a woman or a man or anything?
Seems to be a question nowadays.
Now listen, women get mad at me
gay people get mad at me,
lesbians get mad at me,
but I'm gonna tell you right now,
and this is true...
these transgenders...
the niggas want me dead.
I've gone too far,
I've said too much.
But I got to tell you,
I'm very worried about it.
I'm not even joking with you.
Every time I come out onstage,
I be scared.
I be lookin' around
the crowd, searching.
For knuckles and Adam's apples
to see where the threats might be
coming from.
A nigga came up to me on the street
the other day.
He said, "Careful, Dave, they after you."
I said, "What?"
"One they, or many theys?"
Before I even say anything
about that community
you must know and I hope
you all feel the same way
I am not indifferent
to the suffering of someone else.
There's laws, the mean laws
in our country.
North Carolina passed a law once.
They said a person in North Carolina
must use the restroom
that corresponds with the gender
they were assigned
on their birth certificate.
No, no, no, no.
No, that is not a good law.
That is a mean law.
No American should have
to present a birth certificate
to take a shit at Walmart,
in Greensboro, North Carolina
where DaBaby shot and killed
a motherfucker.
You have to ask yourself,
if you're thinking about it,
who are these laws
designed to protect?
Like let's say they designed this law
to protect me,
my interests, transphobic comedian,
Dave Chappelle.
Let's say I'm in Walmart,
doing a little shopping with my family.
Now I should tell you
if that ever happens in real life,
you should know
my dreams didn't work out.
Well let's say
something goes horribly wrong
and there I'm in Walmart
with the poor Whites
rummaging around
for mediocre goods and services.
And then I got to go to the restroom.
So, I excuse myself from my family.
I go to the men's room.
Now I'm standing at the urinal,
taking a leak.
And this is what this law is gonna do.
And suddenly a woman
walks into the men's room.
I'm like, that's strange.
And then she stands
shoulder to shoulder
with me at the urinal, I'm gonna be like,
"Bitch, what's going on with you?"
And then she hikes her skirt up
and she pulls a real live,
meaty dick out!
What do you think I am going to say?
Thank God, she's in here with me.
At least now I know
my family is safe.
No, I'm not gonna feel that way at all,
I'm gonna feel very uncomfortable.
I would feel better if it was a man
with a vagina
that backed up
to the urinal next to me.
I wouldn't even think about that,
I'd just be like, "That's funny."
"This guy is peeing out of his butt
for some reason."
"My God, he must be a Veteran,
thank you for your service."
I'm not indifferent to people's suffering
'cause I know it's hard to be everybody.
We Blacks, we just got
our first big holiday in a long time.
Happy belated Juneteenth
to the Blacks.
Juneteenth is a strange holiday,
isn't it?
- Yes.
- It commemorates
when Black people in Texarkana area
of the country
first found out that they were free.
But remember, they were free
when they found out.
They just didn't know it yet.
Very interesting holiday.
You know, I learned something
This is a wild story.
I learned this past Juneteenth
of a story, this is true.
And it's that there was a Black man
who was in South Carolina
during slavery
who somehow got granted his freedom
by his so-called master.
And when his master granted him
the freedom
he also gave him a plot of land.
Now it turns out,
this brother was brilliant.
He had a good eye,
good knack for farming.
And he farmed this plot of land
very successfully
and made a lot of money,
and this is where the story gets crazy.
When he got all that money...
this nigga brought some slaves.
Have you ever heard this before?
This is a true story.
Not only was he a slave owner,
he became a slave breeder.
And employed tactics that were so
cruel
even White slave owners were like,
"Yo, my man."
He was a wild dude, but he did it
just because that's what successful people
did at the time.
He just wanted to be down,
what a fuckin' tragedy.
How can a person
that went through slavery
perpetuate the same evil
on a person that looks just like him.
It's mind blowing.
And shockingly,
they're making a movie about him.
Ironically... it is called Space Jews.
Space Jews.
The point of that story is
this person was invested
in a construct.
That was the construct
of successful people
and he just followed the roadmap
of successful people.
He followed what they called
"an incentive."
Now, everyone struggles
but I'm very invested
in the gender construct, personally.
'Cause I'm a man with kids,
and a wife, and
I like that warm, wet soft pussy
that my wife has.
This does not mean that I feel like
another point of view
can't exist.
I was doing a night club in Oakland,
16 years ago
and this was the first time
that the trans community
ever got mad at me that I knew about.
And then I was nobody,
I had just quit Chappelle Show.
It was like a nothing
hole in the wall club
and I was doing some transgender jokes
in Oakland, it was 16 years ago.
My pronoun game
was not as nice as it is today.
I went too far, I said things like
tranny and shit I didn't know these words
were bad, and a woman stood up
and just gave me the business.
Started screaming at me,
and I'm sure it was a woman.
But she kept calling me
transphobic and all this shit
I had never even heard these words before,
it was really weird.
I didn't trip, I just gazed
at Security
to look like, "Go on,
get that bitch out of here."
I kept it moving.
And then she went to the press.
The next day one
of the gay papers wrote
all of the same things she had said to me,
about me in the paper.
Misquoted the jokes,
and was calling me transphobic
you know, these words,
I had never heard them before but
every time that I talked with anybody
from the community since
they always repeat the talking points
from that article.
My least favorite of which being,
I hate this phrase
they say, "I was punching down on
them."
"Punching down",
what the fuck does that mean?
Now fast forward.
It is 2019.
And I am in a restaurant in Ohio,
very nice restaurant.
It's Thanksgiving week.
And to be honest,
it is not a very nice restaurant, but
it is a nice restaurant,
if you're a White person from Ohio
that has never been anywhere before.
Picture Chili's.
I'm sitting in the bar,
I'm having a drink by myself
and the only other person in the bar
is a woman, a couple of stools down.
And she was alone, and she was older,
and that made me feel sad,
'cause it was the holidays.
So, I told the bartender,
"Send that woman a drink on me."
Just trying to spread the cheer,
and I wish I didn't.
This woman wanted to talk.
She wasn't mean, she was nice,
but she just wanted to talk about shit
that you know, I mean a nigga
just trying to get drunk
don't want to hear about this bitch
remodeling in her bathroom.
And I'm sitting there,
trying to be polite.
Subway tiles? Word.
But then she hits a lick.
Piqued my interest.
She says, "My daughter is coming home
for the holidays."
Like, "That is great news,
I'm glad you're not going to be alone."
And then she goes on and on
about how great her daughter is.
I guess her daughter got a new agent
and she is out in Hollywood,
she's in movies and on television
and all this stuff
and as she's telling me this,
I'm thinking, this woman is so sweet.
She probably doesn't even know who I
am.
Or what I do for a living
because I know
what your daughter's
is out in Hollywood doing.
And then she goes,
"Would you like to see her picture?"
"Now I don't want to see
this woman's picture,
but what am I gonna do?"
I'm like, "Okay sure,
I'd love to see the picture."
And I grab the picture
and this is all I say, this is all I say,
she is very beautiful."
And as she puts the picture away
she... looks mean all of a sudden,
like she caught me in some kind of trap.
"What did that face mean?"
And then she goes, "She's transgender."
And I think to myself, "This bitch
does know who I am."
I really resented that trap
because that trap
doesn't let me be honest.
If I was honest,
I wouldn't have fallen for it.
I'd have just looked at the picture
like,
"Look at that big chiseled jawline,
that big thick Joe Rogan neck.
Is that a dude?
Is your daughter a man?"
Can't say that shit.
It's really annoying.
Fast forward,
now it's a couple of days later.
It's the Wednesday...
before the Thursday that's Thanksgiving,
and I'm in a totally different bar
and this bar, trust me,
is not a nice place.
It's foul, it's one of those bars
where the top shelf
should be under the sink.
This is where the poor Whites drink.
The Tiki torch Whites.
You know what I mean?
Them White people, they believe in "Q"
and they love Trump. You know what I
mean? Like Michigan White people.
I remember I was at this bar one time,
it was that kind of bar it is.
I was in there one time,
I was fucked up
and I turned around
to everybody in the bar
and go "Hey everybody, I am going to buy
everyone in the bar a round of drinks."
And all the motherfuckers
was like, "Hurrah!"
And the bartender knew I was drunk,
so she pulled me aside.
"Mr. Chappelle, are you sure about
that?"
That's going to be 16 dollars.
Tough time for the Whites.
And this was a holiday weekend.
You know what I mean?
These motherfuckers
were having a rootin' tootin' time.
They was in there partying,
making all them noises.
"Ooh! Yeow!"
You know all them noises
White people make before lynching?
They was doing all that shit.
I was drunk.
I looked over my shoulder,
I thought I was trippin'.
Guess who was in the bar?
I thought I was seeing things,
I looked across the room
and I saw...
the trans-bitch from the picture.
I couldn't believe it.
I said "What is a trans person,
doing in a place like this?
This is very dangerous behavior."
And she was with, two big, buff,
gay Black dudes.
I didn't know these dudes,
but I know they was gay.
If they had a dick in their mouth,
they wouldn't look any gayer
than they did just sitting there.
They had 1980s gay face.
You know what that is?
Remember in the '80s
when gay people looked surprised
all the time.
"Close your mouth, nigga,
what is surprising", you know what I mean?
But they was huge, they looked like
Jussie Smollett's trainers.
And I am thinking, "Man these
motherfuckers are in a lot of trouble."
So what I do is I stand up
and everybody in the bar likes me,
so I make a big show of it
to make sure that everyone can hear
me.
Now, I walk right up to her,
and I go
"Hey! I just met your mother
the other night
and she told me all the great things
you're doing in Hollywood.
And I cannot believe
that someone
from a podunk place like this
can achieve all that, I'm so proud
of you.
Welcome home."
And the whole bar said "Hurrah!"
And I said ""
"That ought to buy her some time."
You know what I mean?
A couple of more drinks
and these fellows are gonna start
asking her for some pussy,
she might not have.
And she was very gracious.
She said "Thank you so much",
and we shook hands
and as she was shaking my hand,
her face turned mean, like her mom's.
And she said, "Do you mind, not punching
down on my people?"
I don't like that.
Normally, I would've let it go,
but I was drunk.
I said, "What might you mean, bitch?"
I was careful to call her a bitch,
'cause I didn't want to blow her cover.
Turns out she wasn't hiding.
She was loud, she was proud.
She let me have it
in front of everybody.
Screaming at me, all the talking points
from that article.
You transphobic, this and that.
Kept clapping her hands
in my face.
"Let me tell you somethin'."
I said, "Where did you learn this from,
Black bitches?" She kept going,
"Let me tell you something, honey."
So annoying.
She kept calling transgenders, her
people.
Ain't that weird?
"My people this, my people that."
I said, "What do you mean, your
people?"
Were you all kidnapped in Transylvanian,
brought here as slaves?
She said, "My people have struggled
for decades, honey, decades."
And I looked at them
gay Black dudes, like.
"Is there anything
you niggas need to tell this bitch?
Clifford, Clifford?"
I am exaggerating,
she is actually a very nice person
and I'm cool with her now,
but boy, that shit got on my nerves.
And it got on my nerves because, whenever
someone says that to me
I know they have never seen me
for themselves, they just repeat
what they've heard.
Any of you, who have ever watched me
know
that I've never had a problem
with transgender people.
If you listen to what I'm saying, clearly
my problem
has always been with White people.
I've been arguing with the Whites
my entire career.
Just when I thought I had you guys
on the ropes
you changed all the rules.
"Yeah?"
- Yeah, motherfucker!
- "Well."
I am a girl now, nigger.
You must treat me as such.
"Call me a girl, nigger."
It's annoying as fuck.
No, no, go back, go back
tonight after the show,
watch every special I did on Netflix.
Listen to everything
I've ever said about that community.
I'll go through 'em.
I said, "How much do I have to participate
in your self image?"
I said, "You shouldn't discuss this
in front of Black people."
I said, "I know niggas in Brooklyn
that wear high heels just to feel safe."
I asked you "Why is it easier
for Bruce Jenner
to change his gender
than it is for Cassius Clay
to change his name?"
If you listen to what I'm saying,
I'm not even talking about them,
I'm talking about us
and "they don't listen."
It's very annoying.
And they have canceled people,
more powerful than me.
They canceled J.K. Rowling, my God.
J.K. Rowling wrote
all the Harry Potter books by herself.
She sold so many books,
the Bible worries about her.
And they canceled it because,
she said in an interview
and this is not exactly what she said,
but effectually she said
that gender was a fact.
And then the trans community
got mad as shit,
they started calling her a TERF.
I didn't even know,
what the fuck that was.
But I know that trans people make up words
to win arguments.
So I looked it up.
TERF is an acronym.
It stands for Trans-exclusionary
radical feminist.
This is a real thing,
this is a group of women...
that hate transgender.
They don't hate transgender women but
they look at trans women
the way we Blacks
might look at Black face.
It offends them like, "This bitch
is doing an impression of me."
Now I shouldn't speak on this
because I'm not a woman
nor am I a trans.
But as we've established...
I am a feminist.
That's right.
I'm team TERF.
I agree.
I agree, man.
Gender is a fact.
You have to look at it
from a woman's perspective.
Look at it like this,
Caitlyn Jenner
whom I have met, wonderful person.
Caitlyn Jenner... was voted,
woman of the year.
Her first year as a woman.
Ain't that something?
Beat every bitch in Detroit.
She's better than all of you.
Never even had a period,
ain't that something?
I'd be mad as shit if I was a woman.
I'd be mad if I was me.
If I was in the BET awards,
sitting there and they're like
"And the winner for
nigger of the year... Eminem."
My man.
Gender is a fact, this is a fact.
Every human being in this room,
every human being on Earth
had to pass through the legs of a woman
to be on Earth.
That is a fact.
Now...
I am not saying that to say,
that trans women aren't women.
I'm just sayin,
that those pussies that they got...
You know what I mean?
I'm not saying it is not pussy,
but that's like
Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy.
You know what I mean?
It tastes like pussy
but that's not quite what it is, is it?
It's not blood, that is beet juice.
Buddy, I'm in trouble now.
Before I go, I want
to share this story with you
because it is important
to this point.
I want your community to know
that one of the coolest people I ever met
was a transgender woman.
And this is not a man that I knew
that became a woman, this woman was
trans when I met her.
Lived in San Francisco,
Daphne Dwarman is the name.
I would do 18 shows in the Bay Area
sometimes in Oakland
and Dirty Hood night club
and she would be there,
white trans woman, laughing
loud and hard, at everything I said.
Especially the trans jokes,
very puzzling...
because she was obviously trans.
And one night
after one of the shows I met her.
And what it was, turns out
it was her dream to be a comedian.
And I was her hero.
It was very moving.
I could not dislike somebody
that felt that way about me.
We became fast friends.
And when I made that
special Sticks and Stones
right as it was coming out,
I happened to be in San Francisco
and I wanted to do a show.
But I needed an opening act,
and I remembered...
that trans woman I had met,
so I called her on the phone.
And I called her myself,
I said, "Hey Daphne,
this is Dave Chappelle."
She couldn't believe it.
And I go, "I'm in San Francisco."
And then she started saying
a bunch of wild stuff, I was like
"Relax now,
I don't want any pussy, I was...
I'm just calling, because I'm doing
a show and I need an opening act.
And I was wondering
if you'd open the show?"
And she was like, "Fuck, yeah."
Now... I didn't know this at the time
but this woman had only done
stand up comedy eight times in her life.
This was little to no experience
and now she's about to open a show
for what many call the GOAT.
She's an amateur in stature, but
in practice,
she was very professional.
She showed up early,
which is something I appreciate
'cause I like people to be on time.
She was dressed
to the motherfuckin' nines, I mean,
I'm transphobic and even I was like,
"You look nice."
Went up on the stage with all the swag
of a professional comedian,
grabbed that mic
and walked right down the middle
and looked at the crowd like a gangster.
Man, you should have seen her work.
This bitch bombed
for 45 minutes, straight.
And I'm not exaggerating, young man.
That show was terrible.
Stunk.
Stunk.
And then she brings me on,
and you know,
I was like a glass of water
after a handful of salt.
The crowd was happy to see me.
I was killing it.
But here is what impressed me.
Any other comedian I've ever seen,
if they had bombed as bad as she did,
would have snuck out of the back
of the theatre and went home and cried
or something, but she didn't do that.
Not only did she not leave,
she found a seat, right up in front.
You know, when a new comedian
watches an experienced comedian
in comedy we call this "taking class."
And this bitch took my whole class,
she sat up there
and was laughing as hard
as she always laughs
as if nothing bad
had even happened to her.
And I saw her show.
Something bad happened to her.
She was drunk.
So she starts talking to me,
while I'm onstage
but the way a person would talk
to a television when they were alone.
She was talking to me like that.
That didn't bother me
'cause I knew her.
But the crowd didn't like that shit
at all 'cause she sucked.
And a guy in the back of the room
stood up
and Daphne's hair
was dyed blonde at the time
and the guy screamed out,
and his energy felt wild as fuck.
He said, "Hey Daphne!"
and everybody got clamped,
they got tense.
We didn't know who was a heckler
or active shooter, and...
he said,
"Does the carpet match the drapes?"
It was fucked up.
The whole crowd kind of groaned,
'cause it was so like, mean.
Everybody groaned, except for Daphne.
She kind of laughed, which was weird.
And she didn't even look all the way
back.
She said, "Sir, I don't have carpets
I have hardwood floors."
Just like that.
Just like that.
Boy, when she said that shit,
it blew the roof of the place.
Cut through all the tension,
with that one joke.
She had made up for 45 minutes
of a stinker of a show.
And after that, she could do no
wrong.
And I kept on rocking,
and she kept on talking to me.
And then the show
became something cooler than a show.
It became like a conversation
between a Black man
and a White trans woman
and we started
getting to the bottom of shit.
All of them questions that you think about
that you'd be afraid to ask,
I was just asking them
and she was answering them
and her answers were funny as shit.
The crowd was falling out of their
chairs
and at the end of the show,
I go, "Well, Daphne"... I said
"Well, that was fun."
I go, "I love you to death,
but I have no fuckin' idea
what you're talking about."
The whole crow laughed
except for Daphne.
Man, she looks at me
like I'm not her friend anymore.
Like I'm something bigger than me,
like I'm the whole world in a guy.
Then she said, "I don't need you
to understand me."
I said, "What?"
She said, "I just need
you to believe..."
Just like that she goes,
"that I'm having a human experience."
And when she said it
the whole crowd kind of gasped.
And I gave the Fight Club look.
I said, "I believe you, bitch."
Because she didn't say anything
about pronouns.
She didn't say anything
about me being in trouble.
She said, "Just believe I'm a person
and I'm going through it."
I know I believe you,
because it takes one to know one.
Then I told the crowd "Good night."
And they started going crazy
and before the applause
gets to it's crescendo
I was saying, "Don't forget
my opening act, Daphne."
And the crowd stood up.
And I looked at her,
tears came out of her eyes
she couldn't believe it was
happening.
I couldn't believe it was happening
'cause her show stunk.
And it was a great night.
And I remember, the late great Paul
Mooney was there
bunch of flyers, comedy niggas was
there.
And we all went backstage
and was just drinking
and talking shit and laughing
and Daphne stole the room,
she had everyone cracking up.
Spinning the yarn, telling us all these
crazy stories about shit, she'd be into.
We all laughing real hard,
and there she is telling us
and everyone is laughing.
I'm looking around, I'm like,
"My God, she is funny."
I pulled her aside, I said,
"You're hilarious.
I didn't know that
when you were onstage."
I said, "You're doing some things wrong
but I can help you."
I said, "Anytime I'm in San Francisco
why don't you open the show for me
and I'll just try
to give you some pointers
and see if you can work
this thing out."
She said, "Are you serious?"
I was like, "Yeah."
And she grabbed me real tight,
hugged me, squeezed me.
And I pushed her off violently,
'cause I'm transphobic.
I said "Boundaries, bitch!"
When Sticks and Stones came out...
a lot of people in the trans community
were furious with me and
apparently they dragged me on
Twitter.
I don't give a fuck,
'cause Twitter is not a real place.
And the hardest thing for a person
to do
is go against their tribe
if they disagree with their tribe,
but Daphne did that for me.
She wrote a tweet that was very beautiful
and what she said was
and it is almost exactly what she
said.
She said, "Punching down on someone,
requires you to think less of them
and I know him, and he doesn't.
He doesn't punch up,
he doesn't punch down
he punches lines, and he is a master
at his craft." That's what she said.
Beautiful tweet, beautiful friend,
it took a lot of heart
to defend me like that,
and when she did that
the trans community
dragged that bitch all over Twitter.
For days, they was going in on her,
and she was holding her own
'cause she's funny.
But six days after that wonderful night
I described to you
my friend Daphne killed herself.
Yeah, this is a true story,
my heart was broken.
Yeah, it wasn't the jokes.
I don't know if was them dragging
or I don't know
what was going on in her life
but I bet dragging her didn't help.
I was very angry at them,
I was very angry at her.
I felt like Daphne lied to me.
She always said,
she identified as a woman.
And then one day she goes up
to the roof of her building
and jumps off and kills herself.
Clearly...
only a man
would do some gangster shit like that.
Hear me out.
As hard as it is to hear a joke like
that
I'm telling you right now,
Daphne would have loved that joke.
That is why she was my friend.
I was reading her obituary
and I found out,
she was survived by a daughter.
And the moment I found that out,
and this is true
Anderson Cooper from CNN texted me.
And all he says, it's very nice,
he said,
"I'm sorry to hear
about your friend."
And I texted him right back.
"New phone, who this?"
He said, "It's Anderson Cooper."
I said, "Anderson, look
I need to find her family."
And he texted me right back
with all the phone numbers
and all this information.
I say this to say, if you ever want to
know about anything gay
call Anderson Cooper from CNN.
This nigga is faster than Google.
What I did is,
I got in touch with her family
and I started a trust fund
for her daughter
'cause I know that is all
she ever really cared about.
And I don't know
what the trans community did for her
but I don't care,
because I feel like
she wasn't their tribe,
she was mine.
She was a comedian in her soul.
The daughter is very young,
but I hope to be alive
when she turns 21
'cause I'm going
to give her this money myself.
And by then,
by then, I'll be ready to have the
conversation
that I'm not ready to have today.
But I'll tell that little girl,
"Young lady,
I knew your father...
and he was a wonderful woman."
Empathy is not gay.
Empathy is not Black.
Empathy is bi-sexual.
It must go both ways.
It must go both ways.
Remember, taking a man's livelihood
is akin to killing him.
I'm begging you, please do not abort
DaBaby.
Kevin Hart dreamt his entire life of
hosting the Oscars
and when he finally got the job they just
took it!
It's not fair.
They didn't kill him,
Kevin is a strong guy.
But I'm sure
it broke old Clifford's heart.
It's over.
It is over.
I'm not telling another joke
about you
until we are both sure,
that we are laughing together.
I'm telling you this is done.
I'm done talking about it.
All I ask from your community,
with all humility
will you please stop
punching down on my people?
Thank you very much and good night.