The backlash over Chappelle’s performance has revived scrutiny of Tony Hinchcliffe’s similar joke about Floyd and the standards applied to comedians.
Just weeks after Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University in October 2025, Dave Chappelle joked during an appearance at Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival that discussing the slain right-wing commentator in America could get you canceled. Well, more than a year later, the comedian appears to have just tested the theory.
Over the weekend, during the New York stops of his “Karmageddon” tour at Madison Square Garden, Chappelle opened up about how he’s been feeling in the aftermath of Kirk’s death.
“I feel f— up saying this. It’s scary being a public speaker. Ever since that guy Charlie Kirk got murdered, and I shouldn’t say this publicly, but I feel better,” he told the crowd in footage circulating online.
He continued, “I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s just a feeling. I didn’t ask to feel this way,” before joking about driving around in a good mood and suddenly remembering why.
Later, he added, “I’m sure Charlie Kirk is looking up at us right now, laughing so hard he can’t breathe.”
The latter joke may sound familiar to anyone who watched Netflix’s “The Roast of Kevin Hart” in May, when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe delivered a nearly identical punchline about George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020.
As the clips continue to circulate online, drawing backlash from Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, Elon Musk, Piers Morgan, and more, the controversy is reigniting a complex conversation about double standards in comedy and American culture and who has the right to make certain jokes.
Part of why Kirk’s supporters have been particularly incensed by Chappelle’s remarks is because Kirk actually publicly defended the comedian after he himself was attacked onstage in 2022. At the time, Kirk condemned Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s decision not to pursue felony charges against the man who rushed Chappelle during a performance at the Hollywood Bowl.
“By refusing to charge the armed maniac who attacked Dave Chappelle on stage, George Gascon is sending a clear message that public acts of political violence are justifiable—and even encouraged—against anyone who dares speak out against The Regime,” Kirk wrote in a post on X. “It’s Sinister & Un-American.”
In response to Chappelle, Morgan called the latest remarks “disgusting” and especially troubling given his own experience with violence. Meanwhile, Erika condemned comedians and commentators who treat political assassination as entertainment, without calling anyone out by name.
Now, it’s true that Hinchcliffe faced backlash of his own after his joke about Floyd. During the special, he of course also joked that Floyd was looking down from the afterlife, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, a direct reference to Floyd’s final pleas as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck. While the joke drew widespread criticism, including from Floyd’s family, Hart defended Hinchcliffe’s right to make it.
At the same time, the somewhat relentless jokes about Floyd’s murder have also had consequences for his family. Following the roast, a spokesperson for the Gianna and George Floyd Foundation said Floyd’s daughter, Gianna, had experienced bullying at school in part because modern culture doesn’t take his death seriously.
Neither Floyd’s murder nor Kirk’s assassination is a laughing matter for their families. Yet the similarities between the two jokes invite an uncomfortable question about whether audiences are responding to the cruelty of the punchline itself or the identity of the person on the receiving end. And while appeals to stop making Floyd’s death a punchline have done little to stop the jokes, public commentary about Kirk has had serious consequences for people, including Karen Attiah, a former Washington Post opinion columnist who was fired in September 2025 after posting online about not wanting to publicly mourn Kirk following his death.
While she did not celebrate his killing or make light of it, the newspaper accused her of violating its social media policies and engaging in misconduct. An independent arbitrator ruled in August that the Post lacked sufficient cause to fire her and ordered her reinstatement with back pay. However, on Sunday, Nov. 8, Attiah announced that she had reached a settlement with the newspaper and would not be returning because she no longer felt confident she would have the freedom and institutional support necessary to do her work.
Chappelle, meanwhile, has spent much of his career testing the limits of what comedians can say on stage. However, it’s also worth noting that his latest remarks have reached audiences in a way he may not have intended. His Madison Square Garden performances were advertised as cellphone-free, yet here we have unauthorized recordings circulating online, separating the jokes from the rest of his routine.
The comedian has previously spoken about how Kirk’s assassination affected him, acknowledging in his December 2025 Netflix special, “The Unstoppable,” that the killing frightened him as someone who makes a living speaking publicly. Whether his latest jokes were intended as a commentary on the different reactions to Kirk’s and Floyd’s deaths remains unclear, but at least he did offer something of a fair warning.
“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, you’ll get canceled,” he said in October 2025 during the Riyadh Comedy Festival. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”
