An audience member at Tuesday's Netflix Is A Joke Festival has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon after Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage in the middle of his stand-up gig.
As reported by Sky News, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that 23-year-old Isaiah Lee was charged on Wednesday.
It was reported earlier that the suspect had been armed with a replica gun that contained a knife blade.
Chappelle had been performing on stage at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday evening (May 3). Cellphone footage of the unexpected encounter surfaced online following the attack. In the videos, a man is seen rushing the stage and tackling the 48-year-old comic to the ground.
Managing to take the funnyman down, the man is then seen running around the stage as members of the security team attempted to make their way over to him.
A spokesperson for the Hollywood Bowl said an investigation has been launched. "The incident that occurred at the Hollywood Bowl on May 3 2022 is an active investigation and we are unable to comment further at this time," they said, per BBC News.
Videos posted to social media appeared to show the attacker being detained outside the venue by law enforcement and then taken onto an ambulance with "superficial injuries". He was taken to hospital for treatment.
Chappelle later joked that his attacker was a "transgender man" - in reference to the backlash he copped last year after the release of his Netflix special, The Closer.
Trans activists took aim at the special, which at one point sees the comic say "gender is a fact" and that members of the LGBTQ+ community are "too sensitive", BBC News reports.
Netflix stood by Chappelle and continued to air the special despite hundreds of staff members at the streaming giant staging a walkout in protest against transphobia.
Fellow comedian Chris Rock was at the show and also made light of the situation, referencing a scandal that he had personally been dragged into.
Indeed, in footage of Tuesday's altercation at Hollywood Bowl, Rock asked in jest if the attacker was Will Smith - who made headlines in March after he darted onto the Oscars stage to slap him after he made a joke about his wife's short hairstyle.
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