Michelle Buteau Slams Dave Chappelle’s ‘Dangerous’ Anti-Trans Jokes: ‘Doesn’t Feel Funny’
Michelle Buteau knows a thing or two about telling jokes about marginalized people without offending “a whole community.” Dave Chappelle, on the other hand, not so much.
During her Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall Netflix special that premiered Tuesday, the comedian came for Chappelle and his penchant for unfunny, targeted jokes about trans people.
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After telling her own story about a lesbian friend of hers, Buteau said that comedians can “tell jokes and stories and not disparage a whole community.”
“We can do that. We can make it funny,” she said. “We just have to work at it, right? So, if you ever run into Dave Chappelle can you let him know that shit? I don’t think he knows that shit.”
Buteau then jokingly called Chappelle the “GOAT,” but not in the “greatest of all time” sense. She joked that in his case, “GOAT” stands for “going off on trans people.”
“I can’t believe somebody would make millions and millions of dollars for making people feel unsafe. That is so wild to me, truly,” Buteau added about Chappelle. “I’m manifesting this shit tonight.”
She ended: “I’m gonna tell everybody I wanna make millions and millions of dollars for making people feel safe, seen, secure, heard and entertained.”
Buteau reflected on the joke in a new interview with USA Today published Tuesday as the special went live on Netflix. “I’m not saying you can’t say things — I’m just saying, ‘Can you make it funny?’ Because it doesn’t feel funny,” Buteau said. “You’re hurting people and you’re making it dangerous.”
“And it’s not just Chappelle — it’s part of the culture that I don’t understand,” she added. “When people say, ‘We can’t do what we used to do.’ Yeah! Slavery used to be legal, you guys. Sometimes we’ve got to move forward, and I’m sorry if it’s different, but wrap your little mind around it.”
Chappelle has been defending his transphobic remarks since 2021, when he came for the trans community in Netflix’s The Closer. He then did it again in his 2023 show The Dreamer. At the time, a performance of his in Minneapolis was canceled due to the comments. “Trying to silence a person like me, I don’t think it has anything to do with being loved,” he said at the time. “They want to be feared.”
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