Comedian Dave Chappelle was hanging with a group of other funnymen on MonDERAYS at the Hollywood Improv on Jan. 19, hosted by DeRay Davis, and he publicly responded to Katt Williams and his allegations against his fellow comics Cedric The Entertainer and Steve Harvey.
Between sips of his drink and with a mic, Chappelle questioned why the “Dark Matters” comedian only called out Black comedians for stealing jokes and not white ones during his set in a video circulating online.
“I’ve been doing comedy for almost 40 years and I’m only 50 years old,” Chapelle said as he qualified himself as an OG in the game, noting he has performed everywhere including baby showers, christenings, weddings, etc.
But then he asked, “What part of the game is this? He ethered n—gas. He didn’t say anything about any of these white boys. None of these white boys function like that.”
Chappelle was referencing Williams’ internet-shattering interview with Shannon Sharpe on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast. While on the show, he blasted Cedric The Entertainer, Harvey, Faison Love, Kevin Hart, and more.
After accusing the self-proclaimed “Kings of Comedy,” other comedians came out to talk about ways, outside of joke stealing that they thought either Cedric The Entertainer or Harvey did them dirty. Gary Owen came forward to reveal the reason why he quit working with Harvey from 2014 to 2017 on his self-titled talk show.
“I just did ‘Hip Hop Squares,’ the show DeRay [Davis] used to host, and I filmed three episodes in one day on ‘Hip Hop Squares’ and made four times the money I made doing two weeks of ‘The Steve Harvey Show,’” he said, piling on to Williams attack of the 6-foot-2 comedian-turned-businessman.
Gary Owen Sides with Katt Williams, Gripes About Steve Harvey Show Test Run Gary Owen was one of the select few comedians Katt Williams spared in his wild “Club Shay Shay” interview, and turns out Gary has some explosive stories of his own to share. Katt likened GO’s lack of… pic.twitter.com/gV2fOL3bD7
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Chappelle says this domino effect is simply not good for their business or the small tightly knit Black comedian community.
While never saying he agreed or disagreed with Williams’ claims, the inebriated Chappelle pointed out that Williams did not mention the multiple allegations against white comedians that are thriving in Hollywood.
Funnyman George Carlin was accused of stealing jokes from the Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello in the previous. According to Cracked.com, Bob Hope said that the infamous Milton Berle was notorious for stealing jokes, saying he “never met a joke he didn’t steal.”
Milton denied those allegations, telling Larry King once, “I don’t steal people’s jokes. I just find them before they’re lost.”
In Denis Leary’s stand-up special “No Cure for Cancer,” there are claims that his former buddy Bill Hicks ended their friendship due to allegations of Leary stole a significant amount of Hicks’ work for the show.
Names like Conan O’Brien, Jay Mohr (who actually admitted to stealing from Rick Shapiro), Amy Schumer, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, and even Robin Williams have come up as comedians who stole material from other comics, and X, formerly known as Twitter, but none were mentioned by Williams.
Stand-up comedian Brendan Schaub reportedly stole one of Bill Burr’s “most iconic” jokes about Rocky Balboa and Philadelphia, according to one Reddit user.
In Williams’ defense, perhaps, they were not mentioned because they did not steal from Williams himself. Regardless of why, Chappelle believes that the gifted Williams is wrong for lashing out.
“Katt is one of the best painters in the game. So why are you drawing ugly pictures of us?” Chappelle said. “Stop. Hurt people hurt people, but I am a hurt person that never hurt people, and he does it all the time.”
While reprimanding his comedy colleague, he still expressed how much he loved him.
“I love a lot of people, but I love Katt more than most people, and that n—ga is wild,” Chappelle said in the footage circulating on social media.
He also still found a way to make his critique funny, laughing at the idea that bringing down Cedric The Entertainer is a way to stick it to the secret powers that rule Hollywood.
