Dave Chappelle on Hartford: ‘That Crowd Was Evil’

Last Thursday, Dave Chappelle made headlines when he called his standup set short and left the stage after dealing with an unruly crowd in Hartford, Connecticut, and here’s an audio-only clip of Chappelle explaining what happened to an audience in Chicago Saturday night during a recent stop on Funny or Die’s Oddball Fest tour, which he’s headlining. The tour has been going smoothly since the Hartford incident. Here’s what he had to say on the matter in Chicago:

Listen, I know you guys read in the paper that I took a nasty spill the other night, but I swear to God it wasn’t my fault and I promise you, contrary to popular belief, that I’m not on drugs. And the reason I know this crowd is good because as soon as I said I’m not on drugs, the whole back tier booed me. Finally, a “boo†for the right reasons … [This crowd is] So much better than Hartford. I will never go back. I won’t even go back to Hartford for fuckin’ gas. I don’t want anything bad to happen to the United States, but if North Korea drops a bomb on this country, I swear to God I hope it lands on Hartford, Connecticut, onstage at that fuckin’ arena.That crowd was evil! … An arena full of suburban torturers. Young white alcoholics. Just booin’ and talkin’ all kinds of shit. I wanted to pull like a reverse Kramer, just call ‘em all crackers or something like that. I know that shit would be on YouTube … Couldn’t do that because I felt bad when Kramer did that shit to us … That shit in Hartford was bad! You know that crowd feels lucky that they got to see me freak out. It’s just like being at the fuckin’ tiger show the night Siegfried & Roy got their throats bit out by the tiger. It’s fucked up, but I know that’s why you go to the tiger show.
Dave Chappelle on Hartford: ‘That Crowd Was Evil’