John Mulaney Relates How He Broke The News To Comedy Central On Dave Chappelle’s Departure

Bruce Haring

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John Mulaney had an interesting way to start his career. He had to tell his network bosses that their biggest star was walking out on his career

Mulaney was working as a temp assistant to the head of development at Comedy Central and revealed that he fielded the phone call where it was explained that Dave Chapelle, the hottest attraction on the network, “went missing.” The Mulaney revelation came via the Netflix YouTube channel, Netflix Is A Joke.

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Chappelle left his show in the middle of Season 3 of his Chappelle’s Show. There was no immediate word on why or where he was, although it was later revealed he was in South Africa working through a crisis of confidence.

“They were like, ‘You have to interrupt the meeting and tell them’,” Mulaney claims the person on the phone told him. “I was like, ‘Okay.’ So I went in and was like ‘So, Dave Chappelle’s gone.’”

The immediate reaction from the Comedy Central executives wasn’t panic. Chappelle was often late for work. But Mulaney stressed that this time was different..

“They wanted to get season 3 of Chappelle. The tapes from production. They were going to put me on a plane that day and send me to L.A. to get physical tapes so they couldn’t be destroyed and fly back to New York with them,” Mulaney said..

Mulaney went on to his own comedy career, doing several Netflix specials. His first variety special, John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch, is now available on Netflix. Ironically, it’s the same place you can find Chappelle’s latest comedy special.

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