Maurício Meirelles on aggression against Dave Chappelle: ‘Happy not to be relevant like this’

Brazilian comedian Maurício Meirelles was in one of the front rows of Dave Chappelle’s comedy show, on Tuesday (3), at the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles, when he was assaulted by a man who took the stage.

According to Meirelles, in an audio sent to F5, he and other comedians from Brazil watched the presentation produced by Netflix along with another 18 thousand people. The attack happened towards the end of the show.

“We saw the guy climbing up and headbutting him in the stomach and then falling. It was a very fast thing, in 30 seconds he had all the security guards behind him and no one was understanding a thing. Chappelle made a joke there with the situation and they rolled up his guy in the back”, he says.

In the sequence, comedian Chris Rock entered the stage and made a joke asking if the attacker was Will Smith, in reference to the slap he took after making a comment about the shaved head of Jada, Smith’s wife, at the 2022 Oscars.

Meirelles will also perform in the United States and says he won’t have many security guards to help him in case someone else decides to do something similar with him. “There will be ten Brazilians representing the country here. We are happy not to be so relevant as to be beaten.”

Footage circulating on social media of the moment of the assault shows a person running towards Chappelle on stage and throwing the body over him. The incident happened as he ended his performance and thanked the other comedians who participated in the night, including Chris Rock, Leslie Jones and Jon Stewart.

Chappelle later returned to the stage, apparently unharmed, and ended his performance. He also joked about the attack, saying that the person who faced him was a trans man. Often accused by LGBTQIA+ activists of making transphobic jokes, last year he was the target of protests by Netflix employees.