Dave Chappelle told a sold-out audience at Madison Square Garden that he has felt “better” since Charlie Kirk was killed, drawing laughter from the New York crowd.
The comedian made the comment during consecutive weekend performances that concluded his “Karmageddon” tour and launched the New York Comedy Festival.
“I feel f–ked up saying this. It’s scary being a public speaker,” Chappelle said in a clip that circulated on X Saturday night. “And I mean, look, ever since that guy Charlie Kirk got murdered … and I shouldn’t say this publicly, but I feel better.”
The remark was met with laughter and scattered applause.
“I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s just a feeling,” he continued.
“I didn’t ask to feel this way. I just be driving around like, ‘Why am I in such a good mood? Oh!’”
The clip lasts less than a minute and provides no additional context. It is unclear what Chappelle said immediately before or after the exchange.
The performance was promoted as phone-free, with attendees required to place their devices in Yondr pouches.
Rob Henderson, a writer who said he attended Saturday’s show, shared his account of the evening hours before the video emerged.
“I’m so happy Charlie Kirk was killed. I can’t help it, it’s involuntary,” Henderson wrote, attributing the statement to Chappelle.
Henderson, who said he was Kirk’s final long-form interview guest, later wrote that the second sentence “struck me as particularly odd.”
Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at Utah Valley University. Tyler Robinson has been charged with his murder.
Chappelle’s response to Kirk’s death had been markedly different 11 months earlier.
In his December Netflix special, “The Unstoppable…,” he said the shooting had left him shaken.
“If you talk for a living and see Charlie Kirk get murdered that way, I’m gonna be honest, I was shook,” Chappelle said at the time.
Early reports that the bullets carried pro-transgender messages, he told that audience, left him thinking, “Oh no! I’m dead as fried chicken!”
He also dismissed comparisons between Kirk and Martin Luther King Jr. as “a reach.”
