LOS ANGELES (KTLA) – Comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage during a comedy performance at the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday night.
Chappelle was on stage as part of the Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival taking place through Sunday, May 8.
The suspect, identified as 23-year-old Isaiah Lee, jumped on the stage and tackled Chappelle as he was leaving, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Lomeli said.
Lee was in possession of a replica gun and a knife at the time of the attack, Lomeli said.
Video shared on social media showed Chappelle appearing to brush off the dust up as he addressed the incident to the packed crowd.
The comedian asked repeatedly for security to remove the man from the stage and joked that the apparent attacker was a trans man.
“Thank you sir. It was a … it was a trans man,” Chappell told the crowd.
Another video recorded outside the Hollywood Bowl showed a crowd of people around the apparent attacker as he was being placed onto a gurney and loaded into an ambulance.
Lee was transported for medical treatment at a local hospital, where he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, Lomeli said.
He was being held on $30,000 bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Inmate Information Center.
It’s unclear the exact reason Lee stormed the stage, but the controversial comedian has drawn the ire of members of the LGBTQ+ community for jokes he has made at the expense of transgender people in recent comedy specials produced by Netflix.
The entertainment company has stood by Chappelle despite the comments, which has drawn internal criticism by some employees of the streaming giant, which culminated in an employee walkout this past October.
KTLA has reached out to Netflix and the Hollywood Bowl for comment about Tuesday night’s incident but has yet to hear back.
The on-stage incident comes on the heels of the shocking assault of Chris Rock by Will Smith during the live broadcast of the Oscars. Smith approached the stage and slapped Rock across the face after the comedian made a joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett’s hair.
Smith received a ten-year Academy Awards ban for the slap heard around the globe. Rock has been mostly silent about the incident.
