It seems like everyone has an opinion about the ongoing Dave Chappelle/Netflix saga these days. Even 90s rock group Eve 6 got in on the action recently. The latest celebrity to chime in is one most people wouldn’t expect — Magic Mike star Channing Tatum.
Tatum took to his Instagram account and shared some thoughts on his stories, which only stay posted for 24 hours. Tatum posted a video of Chappelle’s speech at the Kennedy Center in 2019, when Chappelle was accepting the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Tatum said the speech helped him heal.
“I understand that Dave is a very dangerous person to talk about at the moment. I understand and hate that he has hurt so many people with things he has said. Any human can hurt someone (usually cause they’re hurt) but any human can heal and heal others just the same. This little piece healed me back in the day. I can’t forget that.”
Chappelle is in hot water over comments about trans people made in his latest special, The Closer.
“Gender is a fact,” he said in the special. “Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact.” Chappelle also said he was “team TERF,” which stands for trans exclusionary radical feminist.
The comments angered a huge swath of people, causing some Netflix employees to stage walkouts and speak out publicly. Others like the National Black Justice Coalition say Chappelle’s dangerous rhetoric helps incite violence in the trans community, especially for black trans women.
A group of Netflix employees have a planned walkout on Oct. 20, and they recently shared a list of demands for the company moving forward. Those include things like the creation of a fund to develop trans and non-binary talent and acknowledgment of harm from transphobic content.
Notably, the demands don’t name Dave Chappelle’s special or call for its removal.
