Late Tuesday night, Dave Chappelle was attacked onstage at the Hollywood Bowl. The assailant, armed with a plastic replica gun containing a knife, tackled the stand-up comedy legend—who quickly recovered, and then had his security team and entourage stomp the trespasser down. (The man was later charged with four misdemeanors.)
The show, part of the inaugural Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival, ended a historic run for Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl, and of course came in the wake of Chris Rock getting slapped onstage at the Oscars by Will Smith over a joke about his wife.
Chappelle’s good pal Kevin Hart addressed the troubling incident two days later on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Sitting across from guest host Mike Birbiglia—who’s filling in while Kimmel is out with COVID—Hart attempted to downplay the episode, calling it “not scary,” before explaining why the aftermath needed to happen.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Somebody ran onstage and got their ass whooped,” said Hart. “Not scary. It’s one of those things that needed to happen, though.”
When Birbiglia expressed confusion as to what he meant, Hart elaborated: “Mike, do you want people to continue to think that they can cross that line and break the barrier of entertainer [and audience]? I don’t know how you could get confused there, Mike! Somebody gettin’ their ass whooped sends a message out to other people that was like, ‘You know, I was thinkin’ about doing that. But after seeing that, I don’t really want to do that.”
“I think that the world that we’re in right now—there are a lot of lines that are being blurred, and sometimes you gotta take a lot of steps back to take a step forward,” he continued, later adding, “I think it’s time to get back to a place of respect for your live entertainer and understand that you’re coming to a show.”
Hart then told Birbiglia that the “most unhinged” audience member he ever had was when he got hit by a buffalo wing in a club.
For more, listen to Mike Birbiglia on The Last Laugh podcast.
