Chris Rock and music producer Diplo certainly have a story to tell after escaping the dystopian scene of the Burning Man festival, which abruptly ended in a muddy lockdown. The weeklong event saw thousands of attendees flock to Black Rock Desert, Nevada, beginning on Aug. 27.
The festival was scheduled to conclude on Sept. 4, but weekend rain forced more than 70,000 attendees to shelter in place as the dry desert land became drenched and turned to thick clay-like mud, leaving vehicles and RVs unable to move and surrounding roads closed.
While most people hunkered down and prepared to make the most out of a wet weekend, Rock and Diplo made their way out. On Twitter, the EDM artist said they walked five miles before being noticed by a fan who gave them a ride in the bed of his pickup truck.
“I legit walked the side of the road for hours with my thumb out cuz i have a show in dc tonight and didnt want to let yall down. Also shoutout to this guy for making the smart purchase of a truck not knowing it was for this exact moment,” wrote Diplo on Instagram.
However, the accompanying video’s subtitle suggests that they walked six miles. In an interview with CNN, the widely recognized DJ said that Rock “was really bizarrely scared about what was going to happen. He thought it was going to be cannibalism a day later, and people were going to run on our camp and steal our stuff.”
Diplo reassured the comedian that would not be the case, telling him, “‘Look man, people know what they’re doing here, everybody here is camping, they all have self-reliance,” before they decided to hoof off festival grounds.
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The duo trekked for about three hours in the mud with the likes of Cindy Crawford, Austin Butler and television writers and producers, before hitching a ride to the next city.
“Chris Rock going to Burning Man at age 58 and needing to be rescued is the most divorced rich guy thing that has ever happened,” tweeted one person in reaction to the story.
Another person said, “Chris Rock being at Burning Man instead of Beyoncé tells me that slap was a long time coming I know black Hollywood does not fw him and I mean the REAL [ninja emoji] not like Wanda Sykes and the rest of the [raccoon emoji] crew.”
“The elites getting extracted before it becomes the world’s largest post apocalyptic mud bog festival is peak liberal hypocrisy,” read a third comment.
Rock has not given any interviews regarding the desert adventure, but Diplo is certain that experience will make for some good laughs during the comic’s next special.
