Comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan discussed the attack on Dave Chappelle on his podcast, explaining why he’s concerned about more of these incidents happening in the future.
On May 3, legendary comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage at the Hollywood Bowl during a Netflix festival.
The comedian was unharmed and security rushed the stage shortly thereafter, delivering a beatdown on the suspect, who allegedly used a weird gun-like knife during the attack.
Police charged 23-year-old Isaiah Lee with several misdemeanors, but prosecutors dropped a felony assault with a deadly weapon charge, causing Rogan to speak out.
Footage of the attacker leaving by ambulancepic.twitter.com/9sqXbjJkSm
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) May 4, 2022
Joe Rogan slams prosecutors following Dave Chappelle attack
On Instagram, Rogan took issue with the fact prosecutors dropped the felony charges, commenting how the situation was “never good.”
“When you see that a person commits a clear crime, and does it to one of the most loved performers alive, and does it in a very high profile public setting, and it gets captured on video, and you don’t charge that person for what they obviously did, it’s the kind of thing that makes people lose faith in law enforcement,” he wrote.
On his podcast, Joe further addressed the attack, saying he spoke with Dave and he was fine, but expressed concern that more attacks could be coming for other comedians in the future.
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Joe Rogan blames Will Smith for Dave Chappelle attack
“We live in strange times,” the JRE host said. “The Chris Rock thing, that’s one of the things I was worried about, I was like, ‘are people thinking they’re going to start smacking comedians now?’”
This was a reference to the most recent Oscars event where Will Smith got on stage and slapped Chris Rock for a joke he made about Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
(segment begins at 2:25 for mobile users)
“What I’m worried about is people think it’s justified,” Rogan added before going off on reasons why someone might think it’s okay to attack a comedian.
Hopefully, Joe’s concerns remain just that and we don’t end up seeing more comedians attacked on stage just because they told a joke someone didn’t like.
