Jerrod, who identifies as gay, criticized Dave in 2022 for relying so heavily on transgender people for his comedic material.
“Chappelle, do you know what comes up when you Google your name, bro?” Jerrod asked in a GQ interview. “That’s the legacy? Your legacy is a bunch of opinions on trans shit? It’s an odd hill to die on. And it’s like, ‘Hey, bro. Who the fuck are you? Who do you fuck? What do you like to do?’”
“Childish jokes aside, who the fuck are you?” Jerrod continued. “It’s just kind of played. But he’s choosing to die on the hill. So, alright, let him.”
Jerrod reflected on those comments in a recent interview with Esquire while discussing his own struggles with acknowledging his sexuality.
“I still think saying you’re gay is saying something’s wrong with you,” he told the outlet. “And so much of comedy is just gay jokes. As long as people continue to laugh at it and mock it, and as long as it’s a punchline, it’s going to be scary for somebody. It’s scary for me.”
Jerrod then mentioned his 2022 Netflix special Rothaniel, where he came out as gay, and how Dave reacted to it.
“He referred to it as the bravest special for 1996,” Jerrod claimed. “And it’s like, that’s a funny enough line, whatever, but I wonder if he gets the irony that the fact that you are mocking it even then is why it was hard.”
Jerrod said when he later criticized Dave for his trans jokes, he basically meant, “He’s not revealing anything personal about himself, and he’s removed from what he’s talking about, and I think he’s smarter than that and deeper than that and has more interesting thoughts.” But Dave “took it as fuck Dave Chappelle, because he’s an egomaniac.”
“He wanted me to apologize to him publicly or some shit,” Jerrod continued.
Dave hasn’t publicly responded to Jerrod’s claims, and his rep did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but we’ll let you know if they do.