One week before Netflix debuted Dave Chappelle’s incendiary comedy special The Closer—in which the comedian defended rapper DaBaby’s homophobic rant and backed J.K. Rowling amid controversy over her anti-trans remarks—former Netflix staffer B. Pagels-Minor recalls that they started to receive distressing messages from colleagues.
“I started getting messages from employees saying, ‘I’m in a really bad space mentally... I’m not sure why I work here. This has caused me to question everything,’” Pagels-Minor says in an exclusive clip for Vice TV’s docuseries Nine Lives Of, which premieres January 10 at 10 p.m. with an installment focused on Dave Chappelle. Nevertheless, the ex-program manager said, “The entire response from the senior team was, ‘You people are just not smart enough; you’re not intelligent enough.’”
Back in 2021, The Closer’s release sparked a walk-out at Netflix, as employees picketed the company at its headquarters over its decision to keep streaming the special in spite of its anti-trans humor. In an email to company staff obtained by Variety at the time, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos wrote, “While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.”
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Netflix fired Pagels-Minor in 2021, alleging that they’d leaked information about the special. (They’ve since started their own venture capital firm, and while they have admitted to posting information on an internal message board, they denied leaking anything to the press.)
According to the former program manager, it was Sarandos’ comments that led trans employees and their allies to picket in lieu of a more casual response: “Because of Ted Sarandos’ responses to everything... that were so off-tone, we decided it was going to be a walk-out instead,” Pagels-Minor told Vice TV.
Conventional wisdom might indicate that Netflix—or any other streamer—would be incentivized to move forward with controversial content if it generates enough attention to pay its way. According to Pagels-Minor, however, Chappelle’s specials didn’t even seem to perform that spectacularly during their tenure.
“Numerically, while many of Dave Chappelle’s specials would get Netflix tremendous amounts of controversy and even nominations for awards and some wins,” the ex-staffer told Vice TV, “it did not by our own standards generate the return on our investment that some other specials that were far cheaper, that were far less offensive, were able to generate.”
In other words, Pagels-Minor said, “Not only did you allow hateful content to go out, but you let hateful content go out that was less profitable than content that does not cause harm.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to a Netflix spokesperson for comment.
Nine Lives Of, helmed by showrunner Anthony Lappé, documents the epic rises and falls of controversial modern cultural icons and will debut with 10 new episodes, all set to air on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern Time beginning on January 10. The first of these installments will focus on Chappelle, followed by subjects Arnold Schwarzenegger, Howard Stern, Paris Hilton, Paul Reubens, Tiger Woods, Johnny Depp, the TV series South Park, and Joe Rogan.
