Over the weekend, comedy icon Dave Chappelle was invited to host the post-election episode of Saturday Night Live for the third time in the last decade. After touching upon the results of the midterm elections last week, he also brought up the usual suspects, Kanye West and Donald Trump.
“I renounce anti-Semitism in all its forms – that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time,” Chappelle began in his monologue. “I’ve probably been doing this for 35 years, and early in my career, I learned that there are two words in the English language you should never say together in sequence, and they are: The Jews.”
The celebrated stand-up comic revealed that he often swooped in to defend West in the past, but this time “I wanted to see what happens first.” He then pointed out the irony of Adidas terminating their collaboration with West: “Adidas was founded by Nazis, and they were offended.”
“It’s a big deal, [West] had broken the show business rules,” Chappelle continued, “You know, the rules of perception. If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. If they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence, and you should never speak about it.”
Later on in his address, Chappelle said, “I don’t think Kanye is crazy, he’s possibly not well.”
Chappelle concluded his comments with a hint of reticence, suggesting that some of the rapper’s criticisms were not without cause. “I’ve been to Hollywood, this is just what I saw. It’s a lot of Jews. Like a lot,” he said. “There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri, doesn’t mean they run the place. You might go out in Hollywood and you might start connecting some kind of lines and you might adopt the delusion that Jews run show business. It’s not a crazy thing to think but it’s a crazy thing to say out loud.”
Later in the SNL feature, Chappelle called Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker “observably stupid” and pointed out the irony in Donald Trump stealing classified documents from “work” — especially since he notoriously never read during his stay in the Oval Office – and praised Ukraine’s success in the Russia conflict in recent months.
In December, Chappelle is set to join friend and colleague Chris Rock for a series of co-headlining tour dates.
Watch Chappelle’s full monologue below.
