Lil Nas X is responding to Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix comedy special, The Dreamer. At one point during the set, Chappelle recalls meeting the “Old Town Road” artist who supposedly told him he tried to get him into his controversial “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” video in 2021. Elsewhere, he imagines Lil Nas X as a little kid telling his teacher his dreams of being “the gayest n#### that ever lived.”
Lil Nas X shared a clip of the special and wrote in the caption, “yall gotta let call me by your name go, me and the devil broke up 3 years ago. yall acting like children of divorce.”
yall gotta let call me by your name go, me and the devil broke up 3 years ago. yall acting like children of divorce https://t.co/HVOfhTVaky
— ✟ (@LilNasX) January 3, 2024
Chappelle’s special was bound to get a slew of reactions on social media, which includes several jokes targeting the trans community and disabled people. Toward the beginning of the special, he tells a story about visiting actor Jim Carrey while he was shooting the 1999 film Man on the Moon, in which he went method on set while portraying comedian Andy Kaufman. Chappelle recalls being “very disappointed” that he spent the day speaking to Carrey pretending to be Kaufman, ending by saying, “That’s how trans people make me feel.”
Chappelle later addressed the controversy surrounding his previous standup specials, saying, “If you guys came here to this show tonight thinking that I’m going to make fun of those people again, you’ve come to the wrong show. I’m not f###ing with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t saying s### about them. Maybe three or four times tonight, but that’s it.
“I’m tired of talking about them. And you want to know why I’m tired of talking about them? Because these people acted like I needed them to be funny. Well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need you. I got a whole new angle coming. You guys will never see this s### coming. I ain’t doing trans jokes no more.”
But that was short-lived. He eventually returned to the topic, saying, “To be honest with you, I’ve been trying to repair my relationship with the transgender community cause I don’t want them to think that I don’t like them. You know how I’ve been repairing it? I wrote a play. I did. Cause I know that gays love plays. It’s a very sad play, but it’s moving. It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n####a. It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play she dies of loneliness cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her. It’s sad.”
He continued, “God forbid I ever go to jail. But if I do, I hope it’s in California. Soon as the judge sentences me, I’ll be like, ‘Before you sentence me, I want the court to know I identify as a woman. Send me to a woman’s jail.’ As soon I get in there, you know what I’mma be doing. ‘Give me your fruit cocktail, b####, before I knock your motherf###ing teeth out. I’m a girl, just like you, b####. Come here and suck this girl d### I got. Don’t make me explain myself. I’m a girl.’”
Lil Nas X, of course, is openly gay and often makes light of the homophobia he experiences through social media.