The Dave Chappelle conspiracy theory: Oprah threats, Farrakhan thugs??

An interesting site popped up, offering a strange conspiracy tale surrounding Dave Chappelle and leading members of the American black community. The site, chappelletheory.com, offers a strange tale of threats, phone calls and the dangerous members of the Oprah mafia/militia.

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Robert Johnson (the founder of BET) are all purported to have been quickly offended by the Chappelle Show, and have conspired to get Chappelle Show cancelled.

The theory places such sketches as 'Dave marries Oprah' in an entirely different context -- supposedly that one was Dave's gesture of defiance against Oprah.

The site claims to have been written by a former PR executive disgusted with what happened. The site looks good, it tells an exciting tale. In other words it's another well-marketed conspiracy theory thing. We can't be too surprised that this kind of stuff pops up, considering how the Chappelle Show's abrupt demise was kind of mysterious. This segment, March 2004, was quite dramatic:

The next day a friend recounted a frantic phone call from Chappelle at 2pm. Dave described the following story of the previous night, which his friend assumed, at the time, to be a dream: (paraphrased)

I was in bed next to my wife when I got woken up by a heavy pressure on my chest.

I opened my eyes to find one of the three men — that appeared in my bathroom days before — perched on top of my stomach, wielding a Colt 45 handgun with an enormous silencer. The other two men were holding me down. It seemed like my wife had been drugged, as she laid motionless but breathing next to me.

Oprah Winfrey leaned forward and whispered in my ear "you better watch your step — we're representing interests more powerful than you can imagine. You do remember that Farrakhan killed Malcom, and that Cosby, Johnson and I have more money than God — we can keep this harassment up forever. Is this what you want your life to be like Dave?"

The last thing I remember, someone knocked me out.

I woke up with my wife the next morning and I thought it might have been a dream, but I still have a bruise on my head and I really think this all happened, despite the fact that my wife shows no signs of anything having ever happened.

Chappelle then said he was afraid to tell his wife this story because he was nervous that she would call the ambulance again. He told his agent that he felt he needed body guards — but his agent advised against it for fear that it would make him look too paranoid and jeopordize his career. Since it seemed like he could get no outside help, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

March 24, 2004

On the next show Chappelle decided to attack Oprah directly, as he now knows she is behind all of the harassment.

The skit, called "Dave Gets Oprah Pregnant" centered around Dave getting a call from Oprah informing him that she is going to have his baby. After hearing the news, Dave quits his job and moves in with Oprah, spending her money like its going out of style. Chappelle felt that he had the leverage to get away with this, as Winfrey wouldn't want her involvement to unseat Chappelle made public. He soon realized his leverage wasn't as strong as he thought.

So is it real? Of course I cannot say. I would not be surprised that Oprah, Cosby, Farrakhan and Sharpton would have been deeply offended by the Chappelle Show, and taken some kind of reactive action. Maybe Dave will explain if he was ever threatened, or if this is just another exciting Internet yarn...