Dave Chappelle found! Talks with TIME Magazine in

[Nightfall 0]

"I figured, Let me just cut myself off from everybody, take a minute and pull a Flintstone-stop a speeding car by using my feet as the brakes. I am surprised at what I would do for $50 million. I am surprised at what people around me would do for me to have $50 million," Dave Chappelle tells TIME's Christopher John Farley in an exclusive interview.

 

CHAPPELLE tells TIME he's not in mental hospital or drug rehab, debunking earlier reports in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and elsewhere.

 

The full story, as well as exclusive photos of Chappelle in South Africa, will appear on TIME.com Sunday morning and in the issue that hits newsstands Monday.

 

 

 

Got this off Drudge. So maybe he will complete season 3 and it will air soon.

[AmericanDragon 0]

Chris Farley?

[Mole 0]

EW feels dumb.

 

Plus, Time and EW are owned by the same company.

[Mik 0]

How do you know this stuff, Mole?

 

As long as he finishes his contract and we get more quality TV... that's all I care about.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Who GIVES a flying fuck where Dave Chappelle is. "I'm Rick James bitch" is a pox upon society. He can stay gone for all I care.

[Brett Favre 0]

There's a shitload more to that show than "I'm Rick James bitch".

[Guest Vitamin X]

Not to mention the guy is a great stand-up comedian as well.

[The Czech Republic 0]

There's a shitload more to that show than "I'm Rick James bitch".

You'd never guess.

[The Niggardly King 0]

There's a shitload more to that show than "I'm Rick James bitch".

You'd never guess.

WHAT?!

[The Czech Republic 0]

As much funny stuff as he may have done, all I hear is "I'm Rick James bitch"

[GreatWhiteNope 0]

As much funny stuff as he may have done, all I hear is "I'm Rick James bitch"

OK!

[iggymcfly 0]

As much funny stuff as he may have done, all I hear is "I'm Rick James bitch"

YEEEEAAAH!

[razazteca 0]

Chris Farley?

Never watch Headline News or CNN....this Chris Farley is a black guy.

[syxx2001 0]

You'd never guess? And whos fault is that? Chappelle's? Is it Rey Mysterio's fault that you would never know there are any cruiserweights in the WWE?

[Guest Brian]

No need to derail the thread, Czech. If you're not going to contribute, don't bother posting.

 

As for Chappelle, the whole mental health thing seemed way too out there.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

I believed it as long as the theory was 'nervous breakdown'. It seemed pretty plausible, all things considered.

[Guest Brian]

But all the way to South Africa. I could believe bits and parts, but not the whole thing. Mental block, taking a break, yeah. Taking some time in South Africa in the middle of taping, yeah. Nervous breakdown, yeah. But everything and going to an institution in South Africa is a bit too much.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

Point taken. I prefer to view all celebrities as eccentric enough to go to South Africa for treatment, though.

[SuperJerk 0]

There's a shitload more to that show than "I'm Rick James bitch".

You'd never guess.

I take it you've never seen "Half-Baked".

[BlackFlagg 0]

In this week's TIME, Christopher John Farley reveals why Dave Chappelle decided to leave his hit show and what he's been up to since he disappeared to South Africa two weeks ago. Last Friday night, TIME Johannesburg bureau chief Simon Robinson met with the comic at uShaka Marine World on the beach in the South African port of Durban. In a ninety minute conversation, Chappelle was eager to set the record straight on why he suddenly left the U.S. and what he's doing in South Africa. Here's Robinson's account:

 

 

 

Dave Chappelle shows up to our interview in a red t-shirt, blue jeans and shiny white sneakers. He lopes around in his usual style, pacing a lot, but does not seem like a man struggling to speak or to order his thoughts at all. He's lucid and thoughtful and a couple of times asks me to give him some time to think about answers. He concedes that he is dealing with a lot of issues and mentions that he had consulted a psychiatrist about a week ago for a forty minute session. He is also quite fastidious about keeping his new sneakers clean and stops at least twice to wipe smudges off their toes.

 

The first thing Chappelle wants is to dispel rumors—that he's got a drug problem, that he's checked into a mental institution in Durban—that have been flying around the U.S. for the past week. He says he is staying with a friend, Salim Domar, and not in a mental institution, as has been widely reported in America. Chappelle says he is in South Africa to find "a quiet place" for a while. "Let me tell you the things I can do here which I can't at home: think, eat, sleep, laugh. I'm an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I've been doing a lot of thinking here."

 

The picture he paints—and it seems a fairly honest and frank assessment— is of someone struggling to come to terms with a new position and power who's still figuring out how to come to grips with how people around him are reacting to the $50 million deal he signed last year with Comedy Central. Without naming specific characters, he seems to blame both some of his inner circle (not his family) and himself for the stresses created by last year's deal.

 

"There were things that overwhelmed me," he says. "But not in the way that people are saying. I haven't spent any of the money. All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true. Why do I live on a farm in Ohio? To support my partying lifestyle?"

 

The problems, he says, started with his inner circle."If you don't have the right people around you and you're moving at a million miles an hour you can lose yourself," he says. "Everyone around me says, 'You're a genius!'; 'You're great!'; 'That's your voice!' But I'm not sure that they're right." And he stresses that Comedy Central was not part of the problem and put no more than normal television restrictions on what he could do.

 

"You got to be careful of the company you keep," Chappelle says. "It's hard to know how much to say. One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change.

 

"During my ascent, I've seen other people go through that wall to become really big. They always said that fame didn't change them but that it changes the people around them. You always hear that but you never really understand it. But now that I'm there that makes a lot of sense and I'm learning what that means. You have to have people around you that you can trust and aren't just out for a meal ticket."

 

The breakdown in trust within his inner circle seems to have led him to question the material they were producing. He seems obsessed with making sure the material is good and honest and something that he will be proud. "I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling," he says. "What ever decisions I make right now I'm going to have live with. Your soul is priceless." The first two seasons of his show "had a real spirit to them," he says. "I want to make sure whatever I do has spirit."

 

But Chappelle also says that he must share the blame for the stalled third season. "I'm admittedly a human being," he says. "I'm a difficult kind of dude." His earlier walkout during shooting "had a little psychological element to it. I have trust issues, things like that. I saw some stuff in myself that I just didn't dig. It's like when I brought a girl home to my mom and it looked as if my mom really didn't like this girl. And she told me, 'I like her just fine. I just don't like you around her.' That's how I feel in this situation. There were some things about myself that I didn't like. People got to take inventory from time to time. That's what this [coming to South Africa] is for."

 

This is Chappelle's second trip to South Africa. He first came to Durban, and visited Salim, in 2000. Chappelle won't tell me exactly how he met Salim but describes him as a family friend. A soft-spoken Muslim, Salim seems also to be something of a sounding board to Chappelle, who converted to Islam several years ago. While Chappelle is not doing a formal religious course in Durban, says Salim, who wore a simple cotton robe and hung back through the interview and photo shoot and only spoke when I asked him a question, "if he wants to talk religion then I'm there as someone to talk to." Says Chappelle: "This is kind of my spot where I can come to fill my spirit back up. Sometimes you neglect these things if you are running on a corporate schedule." The crux of his crisis seems to boil down to his almost obsessive need to "check my intentions." He uses the phrase a few times during the interview and explains that it means really making sure that he's doing what he's doing for the right reasons.

 

His family, he says, has been a huge support over the past eight months. "They've been phenomenal really, just incredible. What beautiful people. Everyone loves their family but it's good if you can like them too."

 

His religion is also crucial. "I don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is a beautiful religion if you learn it the right way. It's a lifelong effort. Your religion is your standard. Coming here I don't have the distractions of fame. It quiets the ego down. I'm interested in the kind of person I've got to become. I want to be well rounded and the industry is a place of extremes. I want to be well balanced. I've got to check my intentions, man."

 

That includes planning for the future. When I ask him if he would ever buy a place of his own in South Africa, Chappelle replies, "First of all I've got to make sure I've got a job."

 

He says that he's only been recognized five or six times in the two weeks he's been here. "It happens so sporadically that when it does it freaks me out because I have to remember, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous.'" At the end of our interview/photo shoot an American woman does recognize him. "Number seven," he cries. "Wow, I'm not that big in Africa. I've got to do an action film here."

 

During most of the hour and a half that we talk, Chappelle is serious and introspective. But he still has his sense of humor, which comes out as we near the end of our conversation: "Is that enough to prove I'm not smoking crack or hanging out in a mental institution?"

 

http://www.davechappelle.com/forum/messages.aspx?ForumID=4

[Guest Vitamin X]

Wow, that's strong of him to admit that. I'll have to say he sounds like he's got a bit of OCD (the perfectionism combined with pausing to wipe his shoes, as well as repeating phrases to emphasize his point), so that sounds like the psychological issue there.

[Guest El Satanico]

I didn't really see any major clues that he's OCD. Alot of people would be OCD, if keeping your shoes clean was an major indication.

 

It seems that his problems come from him wanting to be sure that the show is, for lack of a better term, "keeping it real" to what he wants from it, and having people around him that aren't out for his best interests.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Well at least the journalist seems to be implying it, or he wouldn't have pointed it out:

He is also quite fastidious about keeping his new sneakers clean and stops at least twice to wipe smudges off their toes.

 

But it's probably not the case. He'll be alright, I hope.

[Guest El Satanico]

He very well could be OCD, but I just saw it as the reporter trying to read too much into his behavior. He's interviewing someone with a qeustionable mental state, so I guess it's only natural.

 

It sounds like he'll be fine, once he gets his mind right and flushes some bad influences out of his life.

 

 

Anyone get the feeling that there's going to be a cable movie about this.

[BlackFlagg 0]

dunno bout a movie...but definately an E! THS

[Jericholic82 0]

wow dave is islamic. good trivia factoid there. seriosuly, glad to hear he is ok (at elast I hope hes tellign the truth here)

there salot more than rick james, season one had many great moments, an s2 had better moments IMO. hell Im surprised the prince/charlie murphy skit doesnt get more love. and of course " the Niggar family"

 

dave is a great standup too. Still pissed that I missed his performances in my area. I knew he must have got big when he sold out two nights in a predominatley white city in my county.

 

 

Come home soon dave, we fans will try not to be too critical of the show this year.

 

 

Shazzam!!!!!!

[Guest FileCabinet]

Comedy Central had a couple of things to say about this:

 

We know where Dave Chappelle was: South Africa. But we now also know where he may not be in the future: Comedy Central. More than a week after the network delayed the third-season premiere of “Chappelle’s Show” indefinitely, network president Doug Herzog seems unsure whether he wants Chappelle back at all. This comes after Herzog himself talked Chappelle out of quitting last month, according to the LA Times. Chappelle told Time magazine over the weekend that, “I’m not crazy” and “I’m definitely stressed out” and confirmed a stay in South Africa for what he termed a spiritual retreat. Comedy Central says it’s now expecting the show to be delayed until 2006, if it returns at all. The third season was pushed off at least twice until May 31. The network already had sold commercial time, coinciding with the upcoming release of season two on DVD. Chappelle has shot material for the third season but was apparently unhappy with it and felt pressure to work at a very high level following last year’s $50 million contract with Comedy Central.

 

Got it here.

 

I think Chappelle is supposed to be on Conan next Wednesday. Hopefully he doesn't cancel.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Oh FUCK Comedy Central for that piece of shit attitude.

 

Let them stick their lameass stand-ups on Comedy Central Presents for all eternity and let them shit themselves when Dave jumps to another network who wants him and gets twice the ratings anything on Comedy Central did. Fox would be a great idea...

[Boner Kawanger 0]

The show would never work on Fox. It would have to go to HBO or Showtime.

[Guest El Satanico]

...or FX