Charlamagne tha God took aim on Monday at Dave Chappelle after a viral video appeared to show the comedian making light of Charlie Kirk's assassination. On The Breakfast Club, Charlamagne said he did not find the remark funny and pushed back on the idea that joking about a shooting could be brushed off as harmless commentary.
The clip circulating on social media on Friday showed Chappelle during his Karmageddon tour stop in New York City saying, "I feel f----- up saying this. It’s scary being a public speaker. And I mean, look, ever since that guy, Charlie Kirk, got murdered, and I shouldn’t say this publicly, but, I feel better," before adding, "I just be driving around like, ‘Why am I in such a good mood? Oh!'" That was enough to set off a backlash because Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, 2025, while speaking at his American Comeback Tour at Utah Valley University, and he was the founder of Turning Point USA.
Charlamagne's criticism landed because he did not frame the moment as a defense of Chappelle so much as a rejection of the joke itself. "I don't find the humor in people getting clapped, okay?" he said, adding, "Any of us can be shot, and I don't want anybody getting shot because somebody disagrees with their opinion." He also said, "Like I don't wish stuff like that on my worst enemy."
But he also left room for a different reading of the clip. Charlamagne said it sounded to him like Chappelle was making an observation, not delivering a fully formed joke with all the surrounding context. "It just sounded like he made an observation — at least from what that clip just played, that it was just like he felt better after Charlie Kirk got shot and killed," he said. That distinction matters because the viral video does not show the full exchange, only the portion that spread online and drew the reaction.
TPUSA pointed Digital to Erika Kirk's statement on X, where she said treating the destruction of human life as a punchline is "disgusting." The wider dispute now turns on the same unanswered question that followed the clip from the start: what was said before and after the moment that went viral, and whether the full recording changes how Chappelle's comments should be heard.
