Jerry Seinfeld is sharing his thoughts on Dave Chappelle’s controversial comedy.
The comedian, who frequently uses his Jewish identity as material in his routine, was asked by The Hollywood Reporter about his opinion on Chappelle’s divisive new jokes, which some were calling anti-Semitic.
“I did think the comedy was well-executed, but I think the subject matter calls for a conversation that I don’t think I’d want to have in this venue,” said Seinfeld.
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When asked whether the routine made him uncomfortable, he didn’t answer directly.
“It provokes a conversation which hopefully is productive,” he said.
As for whether he’ll take his fellow contemporary to task over the content, the comedian said they didn’t have a relationship which would make that possible.
“I don’t have a close relationship with him,” Seinfeld said. “We’re friends and it’s not a close relationship.”
Chappelle is no stranger to controversy over his jokes, but his recent “SNL” monologue took aim at Kanye West’s explosive Twitter comments targeting Jewish people. He joked that West should apologize to “buy himself some time.”
“I’ve probably been doing this 35 years now, and early in my career I learned that there are two words in the English language you should never say together in sequence, and they are: The Jews,” Chappelle said. “I’ve never heard someone do good after they said that.”
He continued, “I’ve been to Hollywood and this is just what I saw: It’s a lot of Jews, like a lot, but that doesn’t mean anything. There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri, but that doesn’t mean we run the place.”
He admitted he could understand why West adopted his strange beliefs about Hollywood, but that they weren’t grounded in reality.
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“I can see if you had some kind of issue, you might go out to Hollywood and you might start connecting some lines and you could maybe adopt the delusion that Jews run show business,” he added. “It’s not a crazy thing to think, but it’s a crazy thing to say out loud in a climate like this.”
