Comedian Dave Chappelle has announced that his long-running beef with Comedy Central over the rights to Chappelle’s Show is over and the show is now again streaming on Netflix.
This surprise announcement came from Chappelle’s Instagram video post that he posted late Thursday night from a recent 10-minute standup performance titled “Redemption Song”. In which the comedian summarized his past dispute with Comedy Central and ViacomCBS, which resulted in the removal of Chappelle’s Show from Netflix in November last year.
At the time, Dave Chappelle said that “it makes him sad” that ViacomCBS licensed the Chappelle’s Show streaming rights to Netflix without even asking him. But now, after three months, and 15 years after the comedian famously walked off the show (due to the stress of producing and his increasing discomfort with the material in its sketches), he says that the issue has been resolved. According to Chapelle’s clip posted on Instagram, Comedy Central reached out to him to make things right and that his hit sketch-comedy show could return to Netflix (currently streaming).
“I asked you to stop watching the show and thank God almighty for you, you did,” Chappelle said in the video. “You made that show worthless because, without your eyes, it’s nothing. And you stopped watching it. They called me and I got my name back and I got my license back and I got my show back and they paid me millions of dollars. Thank you very much.”
Chappelle then thanked Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos for listening to his request and his “courage” to remove the show and Chris McCarthy of ViacomCBS for “making the past right.”
Then he ended the clip by saying, “Finally after all of these years I can finally say to Comedy Central, ‘it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.’“