Dave Chappelle told a sold-out Madison Square Garden that he felt “better” since Charlie Kirk’s murder – and had the New York crowd laughing.
The comedian made the remark during back-to-back weekend shows that closed his “Karmageddon” tour and opened the New York Comedy Festival.
“I feel fucked up for saying that. It’s scary to be a public speaker,” Chappelle said in a clip released by X on Saturday night. “And I mean, look, ever since that guy Charlie Kirk was murdered…and I shouldn’t say this publicly, but I feel better.”
Scattered laughter and applause followed.
“I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s just a feeling,” he continued.
“I didn’t ask to feel this way. I’m just driving around thinking, ‘Why am I in such a good mood? Oh !”
The clip is less than a minute long and offers no further explanation; what happened before and after is unclear.
The show was advertised as being phone-free, with participants’ devices sealed in Yondr pouches.
Rob Henderson, a writer who said he attended the show on Saturday, posted his own account of the line hours before the video surfaced.
“I’m so glad Charlie Kirk was killed. I can’t help it, it was unintentional,” Henderson wrote, attributing the words to Chappelle.
Henderson, who said he was Kirk’s last guest on a lengthy interview, later wrote that the second sentence “struck me as particularly odd.
Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on September 10, 2025 while speaking at Utah Valley University. Tyler Robinson was charged with her murder.
Eleven months ago, Chappelle reacted differently to the subject.
In his December Netflix special “The Unstoppable…” he said the shooting shook him.
“If you talk for a living and see Charlie Kirk get murdered like that, I’ll be honest, I was shaken,” Chappelle said at the time.
Early reports that the bullets carried pro-transgender messages, he told his audience, left him thinking, “Oh no! I’m dead as fried chicken!”
He also dismissed comparisons between Kirk and Martin Luther King Jr. as “a reach.”
Gn entert
