Dave Chappelle stopped by his old high school earlier this week, but it wasn’t exactly the warm welcome most famous alumni receive.
According to Politico, Chappelle dropped into Washington D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts on Tuesday, where he handed out 600 Thanksgiving meals for staff and students, as well as tickets for that night’s local screening of his Untitled documentary.
Chappelle arrived with a camera crew in tow to “raucous cheers and some boos”.
However, during a Q&A session with students the comedian was faced with some hairy questions about his controversial Netflix special, The Closer.
In the special, released in October, Chappelle made several jokes about transgendered people, defended J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans sentiment – going so far as to describe himself as “Team TERF”.
His comments were met with criticism by some and defended by others.
During the contentious Q&A session, the school confirmed “about eight students” stepped forward to ask questions.
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One student took the mic and called Chappelle a “bigot,” saying, “I’m 16 and I think you’re childish, you handled it like a child.”
According to students who were present, Chappelle responded, “My friend, with all due respect, I don’t believe you could make one of the decisions I have to make on a given day.”
In response to another question, Chappelle said, “I’m better than every instrumentalist, artist, no matter what art you do in this school, right now, I’m better than all of you. I’m sure that will change. I’m sure you’ll be household names soon.”
When one student yelled, “Your comedy kills,” from the back of the room, Chappelle allegedly fired back with, “N—— are killed every day.”
He quickly followed it with, “The media’s not here, right?”
Chappelle’s spokesperson Carla Sims has responded to angry backlash from students and parents, who were unhappy with his use of the n-word in front of the teens.
“They are complaining that he talked and said the n-word,” she said.
“If anything, Dave is putting the school on the map.”
According to the students, Chappelle’s tone changed as he wound down.
Turning to the camera, he spoke out against death threats some students have received since protesting him.
“His whole tone changed,” one of the students said.
“If [only] he [had] acted that way the whole time… There was no reason to be mean to us. He was just laughing at kids.”
