"The Smollett Rope Debacle" lyrics - DAVE CHAPPELLE

I'm just afraid of being attacked. It happens to the best of us. Don't ever forget what happened to that French actor. You know who I'm talking about. Jussie Smollett, he's a very French... A very famous French actor. Y'all never heard of Jussie Smollett? Jussie Smollett is an actor from France. A-And he became famous on a show called Empire. And one night, he was in Chicago late at night, and was the victim... He was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack. You see, Jussie Smollett is... gay, and he is black, not just French. Oh, it was a crazy story. Apparently, when he's walking down the street late at night, two white men came out of the shadows, uh... with MAGA hats on and beat him up. Tied a rope around his neck, called him all kinds of n I g g a s and... and... put some bleach on him and ran off into the night. This shit was, like, international news. And everybody was furious, especially in Hollywood. It's all over everybody's Twitter feed and Instagram page. "Justice for Jussie" and all this shit. The whole country was up in arms. We was talking about it all the time on the news, and... and, for some reason, uh, African Americans, we were like oddly quiet. We were so quiet about this shit that the gay community started accusing the African American community of being homophobic for not supporting him. But what they didn't understand is that we were supporting him with our silence. Because we understood that this n I g g a was clearly lying. None of these details added up at all. He said he's walking down the street in Chicago and-and, uh, white dudes come up to him and say, "Hey, man, aren't you that f a g g o t n I g g e r from Empire?" What the fuck? Does that sound like how white people talk? I know white people. They don't talk like that. "Are you that f a g g o t n I g g e r from Empire?" They would never say that. It sounds like something... that I would say. If you're racist and homophobic, you don't even know who this n I g g a is. You can't watch Empire.
Black people never feel sorry for the police, but this time, we even felt sorry for the police. Can you imagine if you was a police veteran taking this kid's police report? "Okay, Mr. Smollett. Please, tell me what happened." "All right, you... 2:00 a.m. You left the house at 2:00 a.m. It was minus 16 degrees and... -All right. You were walking? You were walking. All right. And... and where were you going? Subway? Sandwiches? That's when the men approached you? Did you see them? Do you have any- Okay, what did they have on? MAGA hats? MAGA hats on in Chicago? Excuse me, one second, Mr. Smollett. Frank, come here for a second. Find out where Kanye West was last night." Such a fucking outrageous story. He said they put a rope around his neck. Has anyone here ever been to Chicago? Yes! All right. All right, so you've been there. Now, tell me, how much rope do you remember seeing? Who the fuck is carrying rope? Like, when did you get mugged, n I g g a, in 1850? -Who's got rope? - Who's got rope? Man, that shit was awful.
So, okay. I'm doing a show somewhere, and I'm on stage, and I was a little drunk, you know. I figured, "Fuck, let me talk about that n I g g a a little bit." I figured it'd be safe, 'cause, you know, everybody's phones are locked up... And I went in on this kid. I was talking all kinds of shit. Now, I didn't know that there was a journalist in the audience. And unfortunately for me, that motherfucker... took impeccable notes. He told everybody everything I said. He was even puttin' the jokes in the headline. The headline said, "Dave Chappelle Says He Wants To Smash A Dollhouse Over Jussie Smollett's Head." I thought for sure when I read that headline, I said, "Well, that's it for me. I'm canceled." But lucky for me, that very same day, the Chicago police caught the motherfuckers that actually did it, and, hilariously, they were both, uh, Nigerian. Not only were they not white, they were very, very black. They were Nigerian, which is the funniest shit. The whole story is funnier now. "This is MAGA country, you f a g g o t n I g g e r." "You f a g g o t n I g g e r."