Chris Tucker addresses outrage over joke stealing

Katt Williams’ explosive “Club Shay Shay” interview that kicked off the year and flipped the comedy world upside down is still a talking point, even when the comic’s name is not mentioned. The Emmy Award winner held nothing back when calling out his peers like Cedric the Entertainer for allegedly stealing a joke.

The accusation has been addressed by Cedric a few times since the podcast episode aired, and now Chris Tucker has chimed in on the matter. In a recent interview with Atlanta radio station V-103, the Friday star said that joke stealing is a real part of their world of comedy, but the brotherhood shared between peers is far more prominent. “I tell people, like, ‘Everybody’s a part of my success’ — every comedian I ever saw in the comedy clubs, every actor — because we all picked up each other’s game. So, we all together on this,” he began.

“We like magicians, we watch each other, we don’t tell secrets. We have a problem with each other, we should say it when we see each other... say, ‘Hey man, you stole my joke’ or ‘Man, that sounds like my joke’… you know, work it out amongst each other,” added Tucker without name-dropping Williams or those who have publicly addressed similar frustrations since the viral interview.

Moreover, Tucker said that shared experiences often blur the lines of where a joke originated. “Sometimes stuff sounds like yo’ stuff. You might — and I did joke about Black presidents years ago, I’ve heard that before — so everybody has their own story. We all go through the same thing, like we all ate cereal when we were kids, we all got a mama and a daddy, so some stuff may sound like yo’ joke, and some people do steal. But that’s when you… gotta keep your game up, you gotta come up with some more material. You know, keep writing… and some stuff you do, and they cannot steal ‘cause everybody knows, ‘Wait a minute, now that’s Chris Tucker’s stuff’ or such and such.”

Elsewhere in the discussion, Tucker, who is making his return to the spotlight with “The Legend Tour," promised that he is back for good and has several other projects in the works. So, it's safe to say that fans can get used to seeing him more often again.

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