A man has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon after attacking Dave Chappelle on stage.
The comedian appeared to be tackled to the ground as he performed as part of the Netflix Is A Joke festival at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.
LAPD officers have confirmed they are holding 23-year-old Isaiah Lee in custody on a $30,000 in connection with the incident.
A spokesperson said Lee had “a replica handgun with a knife” describing it as a “replica handgun-slash-knife”, but neither Chappelle nor any law enforcement officers were injured.
Footage shared online showed a man in a black hoodie rushing the stage and pushing the comic before being stopped by security guards and getting moered as he attempted to flee.
Chappelle, 48, told the crowd: “I grabbed the back of that n!gger’s head, his hair was spongy, absorbent.”
In a short clip, taken after the incident, the Chappelle also joked that the attacker was a “trans man”.
The funny man previously faced a backlash with fans accusing him of making transphobic comments in his 2021 Netflix special The Closer.
A spokesperson for Chappelle’s production company said “he refuses to allow last night's incident to overshadow the magic of this historic moment [record-breaking sales for a comedian at the Hollywood Bowl].
Netflix issued a statement afterwards, saying: “We care deeply about the safety of creators and we strongly defend the right of stand-up comedians to perform on stage without fear of violence.”