Dave Chappelle still stands by his transphobic “Closer” comedy special, but he won’t force outraged students to face his name every day in the hallway.
The comedian announced Monday during a scheduled renaming that he would not allow his name to go above the theater at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts as planned.
Instead, he said, he would “defer” the renaming of his alma mater’s theater to emphasize “the nuance of art” as well as “my right, my freedom of artistic expression,” according to USA Today. The facility will now be called the Theater of Artistic Freedom & Expression.
Last year, Chappelle called the announced renaming at the Washington, D.C., school “the most significant honor of my life.”
Then, he was met by widespread backlash over his Netflix special, including at Ellington, where students confronted him in November about his transphobic comments during a surprise school visit.
“I’m 16 and I think you’re childish, you handled it like a child,” one student told him, calling him a “bigot,” Politico reported at the time.
In response, Chappelle pointed out that he was more famous than anyone else in the auditorium.
At the renaming Monday, the comedian said the criticism “sincerely hurt me.”
“I took a lot of cold shots in business… but that day, they hurt me,” he said, according to USA Today.
“No matter what they say about ‘The Closer,’ it is still (one of the) most watched specials on Netflix. The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it. It has nothing to do with what you are saying I can’t say. It has everything to do with my freedom of artistic expression.”
“The Closer” caused considerable consternation when it hit Netflix in October, chock full of dismissive remarks about trans people’s bodies. Despite massive backlash, Netflix and CEO Ted Sarandos stood by him repeatedly.
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