We don’t often live up to the claim that we cover ‘gossip’ here at 3Quarks but the Chappelle situation has intrigued me, especially since he must be one of a handful of the funniest people on the planet at the moment. After his $50 million dollar deal with Comedy Central for another run of The Chappelle Show he cut out for Africa leaving the third season in the lurch. Rumors were plentiful. He was at a mental institution. He was smoking crack. Etc. Simon Robinson of Time caught up with him in South Africa and chatted.
The first thing Chappelle wants is to dispel rumors—that he’s got a drug problem, that he’s checked into a mental institution in Durban—that have been flying around the U.S. for the past week. He says he is staying with a friend, Salim, and not in a mental institution, as has been widely reported in America. Chappelle says he is in South Africa to find “a quiet place” for a while. “Let me tell you the things I can do here which I can’t at home: think, eat, sleep, laugh. I’m an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking here.”