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Dave Chappelle, Rematerializing Guy

The comic told Oprah what it would take to get him back on Comedy Central.
The comic told Oprah what it would take to get him back on Comedy Central. (By Julie Jacobson -- Associated Press)
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A couple of minutes later, Chappelle was onstage, telling Oprah that his show was "fun and all these things, but there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into making a show like that."

"Yeah. I wanted to just take a look at one of the skits. Me, having your baby," Oprah segued.

Oprah's production people had trouble bringing up the clip. Oprah stared daggers.

Dave and Oprah chatted a couple more seconds.

Oprah: "Okay. All right. Do you have it? Are you going to roll it? Let's take a look. I thought this was hysterical."

Cut to a skit in which Oprah calls Chappelle to tell him she's pregnant with his baby, and Chappelle moves into her house in Chicago and sits around holding a wad of money, wearing a crown on his head.

Oprah: "Okay. So we see how much work -- I mean, it's a lot of work."

Later Chappelle was telling Oprah about a sketch he did for the third season involving a character in blackface and how he was uncomfortable with the laugh it got from a white person on the set when Oprah cut him off:

"I completely understand. . . . Finish, because I have a story to tell you."

She launched into a lengthy account of the time she had some KKKers and skinheads on her show and realized halfway through that giving them airtime was giving them a voice. Duh.

"That moment occurred when I realized what comes with this kind of power is a responsibility," Oprah said.

And again, when Chappelle told Oprah, "You cannot imagine what celebrities go through as far as how your integrity, your self-image and all these things are challenged."

You can imagine how this played with Oprah, having someone tell her she could not imagine what celebrities go through.

"Okay!" she said. "This is a theory that I've always had and I've discussed this with other people. The idea that if you don't know who you are when natter, natter, natter, natter, blah, blah, blah, blah, because everybody is pulling on you. Would you say that that was part of your issue?"

"Absolutely," Chappelle responded.

But then, what else could he say?


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