Dave Chappelle checks into mental hospital

[muchspl3]

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=749369


NEW YORK May 11, 2005 — Comedy Central star Dave Chappelle has checked himself into a mental health facility in South Africa, the magazine Entertainment Weekly reported on Wednesday.

The comedian's whereabouts and condition have been unknown since Comedy Central abruptly announced last week that the planned May 31 launch of the third season of "Chappelle's Show" had been postponed and production halted.

Chappelle flew from Newark, N.J., to South Africa on April 28 for treatment, said the magazine, quoting a source close to the show it would not identify. Entertainment Weekly said it had corroborating sources for its story.

"We don't know where he is," Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox said. "We've heard about South Africa. We don't know. We haven't talked to Dave."

Chappelle's spokesman, Matt Labov, would not comment on the magazine's story.

"It seems like the issues he's contending with are really quite serious," said Dade Hayes, a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly. "It isn't a case of him spending a weekend someplace recuperating from exhaustion."

The magazine's sources say Chappelle is still in the facility, which was not named, Hayes said. Chappelle's representatives have denied that the comedian was abusing drugs.

Chappelle reportedly signed a $50 million deal with Comedy Central for two more seasons of his show, a payday made possible because of the explosive sales of the show's first season DVD.

The magazine said Chappelle had shot four to five episodes' worth of sketches for the new season, but none of its onstage introductions.

damn that sucks :(

[abu_has_the_power]

that's weird


of all mental hostipitals, y south africa?

[muchspl3]

I wonder if it has anything to do with ibogain.

[ApacNTS]

flying all the way to south africa for treatment is crazy in itself.

[Smith]

I guess he really thought he was rick james...:unsure:

[asmithz]

Ehh, more waiting. I hope he gets better, but been waiting for ever for another season. :(

[Skiz]

Alot of these celebs seems to suffer from panic attacks. Maybe it's something along those lines.

He prolly chose S Africa because its far away and it will be difficult to locate him.

[cpt_azad]

wow, when i first saw the thread i thought it was a joke, this is just sad :( i really want to see the new season

[{I}{K}{E}]

older story about Chappelle:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7773670/site/newsweek/


:(

[Samurai]

this is prob why he vanished a while back.

hope he's alright :)

[Skiz]

Good find IKE. Answered quite a few questions. :)

[lee551]

i heard it was delayed. :( sad news. chappelle's show is one of the top comedies around, can't lose it!! :cry:

[wholesome]

i'm guessing he cracked from the pressure of that multimillion dollar contract that comedy central gave him... it's a lot to live up to, and to justify. all the skits from season 3 have already been taped, but not in front of an audience yet (when he presents the skits)... IMHO, i don't think there will be a 4th season... and we're gonna be pretty lucky if season 3 even makes it out to the public. :(

[maebach]

i loved chappelle show i saw every one... too bad, feel sorry for him

[muchspl3]

http://www.drudgereport.com


COMEDY CHAPPELLE SPEAKS: WHAT I DID FOR $50 MILLION
Sat May 14 2005 19:48:54 ET

**Exclusive**

Dave Chappelle Found! Talks Exclusively with TIME Magazine in South Africa

"I figured, Let me just cut myself off from everybody, take a minute and pull a Flintstone-stop a speeding car by using my feet as the brakes. I am surprised at what I would do for $50 million. I am surprised at what people around me would do for me to have $50 million," Dave Chappelle tells TIME's Christopher John Farley in an exclusive interview.

CHAPPELLE tells TIME he's not in mental hospital or drug rehab, debunking earlier reports in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and elsewhere.

The full story, as well as exclusive photos of Chappelle in South Africa, will appear on TIME.com Sunday morning and in the issue that hits newsstands Monday.


not the most reliable place but interesting....

[lee551]

the story from Time.com

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1061415,00.html



On the Beach With Dave Chappelle
In South Africa, TIME's Simon Robinson talks with the comic about his sudden disappearance from Chappelle's Show

Posted Sunday, May. 15, 2005

In this week's TIME, Christopher John Farley reveals why Dave Chappelle decided to leave his hit show and what he's been up to since he disappeared to South Africa two weeks ago. Last Friday night, TIME Johannesburg bureau chief Simon Robinson met with the comic at uShaka Marine World on the beach in the South African port of Durban. In a ninety minute conversation, Chappelle was eager to set the record straight on why he suddenly left the U.S. and what he's doing in South Africa. Here's Robinson's account:



Dave Chappelle shows up to our interview in a red t-shirt, blue jeans and shiny white sneakers. He lopes around in his usual style, pacing a lot, but does not seem like a man struggling to speak or to order his thoughts at all. He's lucid and thoughtful and a couple of times asks me to give him some time to think about answers. He concedes that he is dealing with a lot of issues and mentions that he had consulted a psychiatrist about a week ago for a forty minute session. He is also quite fastidious about keeping his new sneakers clean and stops at least twice to wipe smudges off their toes.

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 Domar, 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."

The picture he paints—and it seems a fairly honest and frank assessment— is of someone struggling to come to terms with a new position and power who's still figuring out how to come to grips with how people around him are reacting to the $50 million deal he signed last year with Comedy Central. Without naming specific characters, he seems to blame both some of his inner circle (not his family) and himself for the stresses created by last year's deal.

"There were things that overwhelmed me," he says. "But not in the way that people are saying. I haven't spent any of the money. All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true. Why do I live on a farm in Ohio? To support my partying lifestyle?"

The problems, he says, started with his inner circle."If you don't have the right people around you and you're moving at a million miles an hour you can lose yourself," he says. "Everyone around me says, 'You're a genius!'; 'You're great!'; 'That's your voice!' But I'm not sure that they're right." And he stresses that Comedy Central was not part of the problem and put no more than normal television restrictions on what he could do.

"You got to be careful of the company you keep," Chappelle says. "It's hard to know how much to say. One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change.

"During my ascent, I've seen other people go through that wall to become really big. They always said that fame didn't change them but that it changes the people around them. You always hear that but you never really understand it. But now that I'm there that makes a lot of sense and I'm learning what that means. You have to have people around you that you can trust and aren't just out for a meal ticket."

The breakdown in trust within his inner circle seems to have led him to question the material they were producing. He seems obsessed with making sure the material is good and honest and something that he will be proud. "I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling," he says. "What ever decisions I make right now I'm going to have live with. Your soul is priceless." The first two seasons of his show "had a real spirit to them," he says. "I want to make sure whatever I do has spirit."

But Chappelle also says that he must share the blame for the stalled third season. "I'm admittedly a human being," he says. "I'm a difficult kind of dude." His earlier walkout during shooting "had a little psychological element to it. I have trust issues, things like that. I saw some stuff in myself that I just didn't dig. It's like when I brought a girl home to my mom and it looked as if my mom really didn't like this girl. And she told me, 'I like her just fine. I just don't like you around her.' That's how I feel in this situation. There were some things about myself that I didn't like. People got to take inventory from time to time. That's what this [coming to South Africa] is for."

This is Chappelle's second trip to South Africa. He first came to Durban, and visited Salim, in 2000. Chappelle won't tell me exactly how he met Salim but describes him as a family friend. A soft-spoken Muslim, Salim seems also to be something of a sounding board to Chappelle, who converted to Islam several years ago. While Chappelle is not doing a formal religious course in Durban, says Salim, who wore a simple cotton robe and hung back through the interview and photo shoot and only spoke when I asked him a question, "if he wants to talk religion then I'm there as someone to talk to." Says Chappelle: "This is kind of my spot where I can come to fill my spirit back up. Sometimes you neglect these things if you are running on a corporate schedule." The crux of his crisis seems to boil down to his almost obsessive need to "check my intentions." He uses the phrase a few times during the interview and explains that it means really making sure that he's doing what he's doing for the right reasons.

His family, he says, has been a huge support over the past eight months. "They've been phenomenal really, just incredible. What beautiful people. Everyone loves their family but it's good if you can like them too."

His religion is also crucial. "I don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is a beautiful religion if you learn it the right way. It's a lifelong effort. Your religion is your standard. Coming here I don't have the distractions of fame. It quiets the ego down. I'm interested in the kind of person I've got to become. I want to be well rounded and the industry is a place of extremes. I want to be well balanced. I've got to check my intentions, man."

That includes planning for the future. When I ask him if he would ever buy a place of his own in South Africa, Chappelle replies, "First of all I've got to make sure I've got a job."

He says that he's only been recognized five or six times in the two weeks he's been here. "It happens so sporadically that when it does it freaks me out because I have to remember, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous.'" At the end of our interview/photo shoot an American woman does recognize him. "Number seven," he cries. "Wow, I'm not that big in Africa. I've got to do an action film here."

During most of the hour and a half that we talk, Chappelle is serious and introspective. But he still has his sense of humor, which comes out as we near the end of our conversation: "Is that enough to prove I'm not smoking crack or hanging out in a mental institution?"



seems he just needs some time to relax and clear his head. good to hear he's not going crazy or killing himself. :01:

[muchspl3]

yea

[Skiz]

Everyone needs a little vacation and some time to decompress. Even a fifty million dollar man.

[Smith]

Two weeks after going AWOL from his Comedy Central show, comedian Dave Chappelle has finally spoken out about his flight to South Africa. Denying that he's in a mental health facility or that he is on drugs, Chappelle chalked his disappearance up to



"All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true. Why do I live on a farm in Ohio? To support my partying lifestyle?" — Dave Chappelle

a combination of stress, creative angst over the ideas for his show, and the fact that he's sometimes a "difficult dude."

Speaking to Time magazine, Chappelle said, "I'm not crazy; I'm not smoking crack." But a week after the third season of his "Chappelle's Show" was postponed indefinitely, Chappelle said he's definitely feeling intense pressure and needed to escape to get his head together.

"I'm definitely stressed out," Chappelle said, explaining why he abruptly left the taping of his show in late April to go on a "spiritual retreat" in South Africa without notifying his agent, publicist or fans.

"There were things that overwhelmed me," he said. "But not in the way that people are saying. I haven't spent any of the money. All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true. Why do I live on a farm in Ohio? To support my partying lifestyle?"

Chappelle said the pressure to live up to the unprecedented $50 million contract he signed with Comedy Central for two more seasons of the show has definitely led to some intense stress, which he felt he needed to escape from.

"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," explained Chappelle, described as "lucid and thoughtful" during a 90-minute interview.

"You hear so many voices jockeying for position in your mind that you want to make sure that you hear your own voice," Chappelle said. "So I figured, let me just cut myself off from everybody, take a minute and pull a Flintstone — stop a speeding car by using my bare feet as the brakes."

Two weeks ago — and just a day after Comedy Central began promoting the anticipated May 31 debut of the series' third season — the channel announced that production on the show had been unexpectedly postponed (see "Production On 'Chappelle's Show' Suspended"). At the time, Chappelle's spokesperson did not provide any other information, saying only that both sides expected to resume taping at some point.

Then, last week, Entertainment Weekly reported that Chappelle had checked into a mental health facility in South Africa (see "Dave Chappelle Reportedly In Mental Health Facility "). In his interview with Time, however, the comedian denied that report. "I'm not in a mental facility," Chappelle, 31, said. He also denied a drug problem, but said he had a 40-minute consultation with a psychiatrist.

"If you don't have the right people around you, and you're moving at a million miles an hour, you can lose yourself," Chappelle said. "Everyone around me says, 'You're a genius, you're great, that's your voice,' but I'm not sure that they're right. ... You got to be careful of the company you keep. It's hard to know how much to say. One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change."

Though he'd heard other people talk about how fame can change you, Chappelle said he now knows firsthand how it not only changes your life, but also the lives of people around you. "You have to have people around you that you can trust and aren't just out for a meal ticket," he said.

Chappelle, who is staying with friends in Durban, South Africa, also chalked his flight up to dissatisfaction with the direction the show was going, saying, "I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling. Whatever decisions I make right now I'm going to have to live with. Your soul is priceless." Because he felt the show's first two seasons had "a real spirit to them," Chappelle said he wants to make sure everything he does has a similar spirit.

Chappelle admitted that he's sometimes a "difficult kind of dude," and that when he left the show for the first time, in December, it was over similar "psychological" issues. At the time, his spokesperson said Chappelle was suffering from an intense bout of the flu. "I have trust issues," he said. "I saw some stuff in myself that I just didn't dig. ... There were some things about myself that I didn't like. People got to take inventory from time to time."

Speculation for the breakdown in the show's shooting schedule had also centered on creative tension between Chappelle and Comedy Central. But a network spokesperson denied any creative clashes last week and Comedy Central president Doug Herzog told Time that the racial-envelope-pushing comedian has "complete creative freedom" on the show. Chappelle also denied that Comedy Central was part of the problem.

His longtime writing partner, Neal Brennan, said if there were creative differences, they were not out of the ordinary and that, "By the numbers, this was the worst way to have done it. He couldn't think straight. It was fight or flight — and he chose flight."

Herzog — who said he recently finally saw a handful of the sketches Chappelle shot earlier this year which he thought were as funny as anything from the first two seasons — has told his staff that he doesn't believe the show will be back on the air in 2005.

"When I get back, [I hope] everything will be up and running, or we'll make other arrangements," said Chappelle, who did not give a timetable for when he might return to the U.S., or if he will return to producing the show when he does. "I don't know what the lay of the land is."

Chappelle said a number of prominent black entertainers have stepped up to offer advice — among them former Fugees singer Lauryn Hill — but it's the advice his father gave him when he decided to try comedy that has stuck in Chappelle's mind. "He said, 'Name your price before you get there. And if you ever find it's more expensive than what you're prepared to give, then get out.' "

— Gil Kaufman


Source: Mtv.com


I knew it, hopefully everything works out for him and he comes back and continues the series.

[{I}{K}{E}]

Hope season 3 will be as good as the first season (or better :P) didnt really like the second season also because it had less stand up comedy (videoclips @ the end)

[Gre1]

Yeah, I figured he is kinda stressed because that is alot of pressure on him to make another season.