Dave Chappelle tests positive for COVID, cancels Austin shows

By William Hughes  |  January 22, 2021 | 5:35am
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Dave Chappelle tests positive for COVID, cancels Austin shows
Photo: ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images

Dave Chappelle has just become the latest big-name performer to test positive for COVID-19, with Deadline—working from reports originally passed around by TMZ—noting that Chappelle has been forced to cancel a series of high-ticket comedy dates in Austin, Texas that were scheduled for this weekend. Chappelle performed the first of the 5 dates—two of which also include performances from Joe Rogan—on Wednesday night, but four other shows have now been canceled, with their ticket prices, running $350 per person sold in tables of 4, 6, or 8, now set to be refunded.

Chappelle has pushed, throughout the pandemic, to find socially distanced ways to continue performing comedy; over the summer, his Chappelle Summer Camp shows in Yellow Springs, Ohio, brought masked audiences and big names—including Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, the disgraced Louis CK, and other well-known comedy celebrities—into (figurative) contact with each other, with rapid testing for audience members, and regular testing for performers. (Per YSNews.com, the final shows of the series were reportedly canceled after a possible COVID exposure among the event’s inner circle.)

Chappelle is currently displaying no symptoms of the disease, according to TMZ; a rep for the comic confirmed that he’s currently undergoing quarantine. The shows in question were set to take place at Austin’s Stubbs’s Amphitheater; Chappelle and Rogan were photographed together there earlier this week, in close, maskless contact with Elon Musk and Grimes. Yes, now that you ask, that sentence gives us a headache, too.

 
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