Dave Chappelle has dealt with a lot of public scrutiny along with his rising fame. After a mysterious end to the popular Chappelle’s Show, the comic has made attempts to return to standup comedy. In Hartford, Conn., however, an unforgiving crowd of hecklers led Chappelle to abruptly end his set.
Last night (August 29), Chappelle was the headlining act for Funny Or Die’s Oddball Comedy Festival at the Comcast Theater. Still struggling with separating himself from his Comedy Central days, Chappelle tried to speak on the difficulty of comics performing new jokes when fans rabidly request the old stuff.
Suddenly, the crowd gets restless and began raining down boos and complaints. Chappelle reacted to the crowd, saying, “You’re booing yourself…you are booing yourself.”
Realizing the gravity of the response he gives the hecklers, Chappelle then adds, “Ah f-ck you, I’m the one who is gonna read the reviews in the paper tomorrow. Gonna have to read about this sh-t for months.”
According to various reports, Chappelle performed for 10 minutes and stopped telling jokes – opting to instead use of the last 15 minutes of his set by smoking a cigarette on a stool and engaging in small talk with the crowd.
“I can’t believe I sat here and watched the crowd scream at me for 25 minutes,” said an exasperated Chappelle. In a bizarre move, Chappelle read an excerpt of a fan’s book onstage which didn’t go over well at all.
Check out the videos of Dave Chappelle’s Hartford show below and on the next page.
[Props to Gothamist]
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Photo: Amycitas
