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If there’s one thing Caitlyn Jenner is going to do, it’s involve herself in some drama. The ex-Keeping Up With the Kardashians star who unsuccessfully ran for governor of California earlier this year is lending her support to Dave Chappelle, amid the controversy surrounding comments he made about the transgender community in his Netflix special The Closer.
“Dave Chappelle is 100% right,” Jenner tweeted. “This isn’t about the LGBTQ movement. It’s about woke cancel culture run amok, trying to silence free speech. We must never yield or bow to those who wish to stop us from speaking our minds.”
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During the controversial comedy special, Chappelle describes himself as being on “team TERF,” an acronym for a “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” aligned himself with prominent TERF J.K. Rowling, and proclaimed that “gender is a fact.” He also name-checks Jenner in the special, calling her “a wonderful person.” Netflix’s co-chief executive officer Ted Sarandos initially defended Chappelle’s special in multiple memos to Netflix employees, writing “while some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.” Chappelle’s special and Sarandos’s defense sparked intense internal backlash from Netflix’s trans and LGTBQ-identifying employees, who ultimately staged a walkout protesting Chappelle and his special. Sarandos ultimately walked back his defense of Chappelle, saying that the company “should’ve led with humanity” in a third memo.
Chappelle has since added fuel to the fire, claiming at a recent show that he’s willing to speak to Netflix’s transgender employees but won’t be “bending to anybody’s demands.”
“It’s been said in the press that I was invited to speak to the transgender employees of Netflix and I refused. That is not true—if they had invited me I would have accepted it, although I am confused about what we would be speaking about,” said the comic, in a clip Jenner shared on Twitter. “I said what I said, and boy, I heard what you said. My God, how could I not? You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. It seems like I’m the only one that can’t go to the office anymore.”
Chappelle went on to etch out his list of demands. “First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end,” the Mark Twain prize winner declared, before taking a shot at comedian Hannah Gadsby—who has been vocal in her criticism of both Chappelle and Netflix. “You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing, and thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny.”
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