Dave Chappelle Makes More Transphobic Jokes While Opening for John Mulaney

John Mulaney fans were shocked when Dave Chappelle made a surprise appearance to open his stand-up show on Friday night, and many were furious that Chappelle kicked it off with transphobic jokes. Chappelle has come under fire in recent months for making jokes about transgender people. Attendees [...]

Dave Chappelle Makes More Transphobic Jokes While Opening for John Mulaney

Mulaney performed to an eager crowd in Ohio on Friday night, not far from Chappelle’s home which he so often references in his work. Before he took the stage, however, Chappelle showed up for a surprise set of about 15 minutes. Attendees told Buzzfeed News that the first joke out of his mouth was about transgender people, in spite of all the controversy these jokes have caused him and the pleas from transgender people to stop. Afterward, Mulaney reportedly hugged Chappelle, which fans took as an implicit endorsement of the jokes he told. Many were deeply disappointed by this public display, which they saw as a political stunt for both comedians.

anyway i was such a big john mulaney fan and i think i still am, but they also had our phones in little locked wallets so we couldn’t film, so i just had to sit there joke after joke about trans people and hear 18k people laughing along
— rylan ☻ (@testosteronejew) May 21, 2022

“I’m just a little disappointed in [Mulaney],” one attendee told Buzzfeed anonymously. “It hurts to know that Chappelle’s transphobia wasn’t enough of a deterrent to keep him off the show. I probably wouldn’t have gone or I would’ve at least skipped the openers if I knew Chappelle would be there.”

Phones and other electronics were not allowed in the stadium at all, so the only accounts of this performance we have are memories from after it was over. Still, fans flooded Twitter with reports of what they had seen, and soon outrage at Mulaney was widespread. Fans were also disappointed in the rest of the audience for laughing along with Chappelle — especially as attendees said that his jokes were not particularly original or funny.

“He made a joke about when he was attacked, how the guy had a knife that looks like a gun. Or the other way around. He then said that maybe it was a knife that identified as a gun. It reminded me of the ‘I [sexually] identify as an attack helicopter’ joke that transphobes make,” the anonymous attendee said. Another attendee, Madison McAlear, told reporters that the set “felt like conservative Facebook humor.”

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Pretty disappointed in John Mulaney, saw him tonight and yeah, he was funny, but he gave Dave Chapelle the platform to make some transphobic jokes. Also very disheartening to hear a crowd of 12,000 around you (a trans person) laughing at transphobic jokes. Thanks Columbus.
— Libby (@libbeefy) May 21, 2022

While the outrage against Chappelle is nothing new, fans were particularly disappointed in Mulaney. McAlear told reporters that she is hoping Mulaney will address the controversy publicly in the coming days, and perhaps apologize. She said: “I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it is nice that a lot of people in my conservative state don’t agree with Chappelle’s TERF ideas.” So far, Mulaney has not addressed the issue publicly.