Dave Chappelle jokes he would identify as a woman to transfer into female prison if convicted of crime in California

Comedian Dave Chappelle took aim at California’s laws allowing men to be housed alongside women in prisons in his latest Netflix special The Dreamer, joking that he would self-identify as female to be placed in a women’s jail.

"God forbid I ever go to jail, but if I do, I hope it’s in California, because as soon as the judge sentences me I’ll be like before he sentences me I just want the court to know I identify as a woman. Send me to a women’s jail," Chappelle said. 

And as soon as I get in there I’m gonna be doin’, 'give me your fruit cocktail b*tch before I knock your motherf*cking teeth out, I’m a girl, just like you b*tch. Come over here and suck this girl d*ck I got, don’t make me explain myself, I’m a girl,'" Chapelle continued, to laughter from the audience.

Chappelle likened the trans movement to method acting, using the example of meeting comedian Jim Carrey on the set of the 1999 film Man on the Moon, in which Carrey had taken on the identity of late American entertainer Andy Kaufman even when the cameras were not rolling.

"Jim Carrey was so immersed in that role, that from the moment he woke up to the time he went to bed at night he would live his life as Andy Kaufman. I didn’t know that. When they cut, he was still Andy Kaufman, so much so that everybody on the crew called him Andy."

Chappelle said he went to meet Carrey and addressed him as Carrey, not Kaufman, "and everyone said 'no!'"

Chappelle said he was "very lucky" to have met Carrey while he was "immersed in one of his most challenging processes ever," but "as it was happening, I was very disappointed because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey and I had to pretend" Carrey was Kaufman.

"Anyway, I say all that to say that’s how trans people make me feel," Chappelle concluded, being met with a roar of applause.

Chappelle came under fire in 2021 after his special The CLoser came out, in which he criticized the transgender movement and the attacks on Harry Potter author JK Rowling for saying biological sex is real.