Dave Chappelle Walks Off Stage Amid Crowd Boos

Dave Chappelle found himself on the receiving end of a not-so-warm welcome at the Funny or Die Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival tour in Hartford, Conn., on Thursday.

According to local reports and at least one fan-captured video, the comedian walked off the stage during his performance, telling the crowd, "I like some of you, I hate some of you. I forgive some of you, but I don't forgive all of you." 

Audience members tell The Hartford Courant that Chappelle's performance was going well, until he stopped telling jokes and instead opted to read passages from a book, smoke cigarettes and ramble on a variety of subjects, insulting the fans.

"The crowd was supportive, but once he stopped performing, they just turned," Joe Moriarty of Holliston, Mass., told the paper.

Another insider, Latanya Barrett of Bridgeport, Mass., said that "everything was great" for the show's first 10 minutes. "It was a typical crowd, yelling out occasional 'I love you' or something random. … But every time anyone would scream anything, he would stop speaking and tell us how awful we were. … It was just a regular crowd. … I didn't understand why he was doing this."

Cheers eventually turned to boos as tension filled the room, and after Chappelle stood onstage for his obligatory 25 minutes, he left.

"He picked up his pack of cigarettes and said something like 'I have a pack of cigarettes, a glass of water, I could sit here all night,'" said Hartford Courant reporter Julie Stagis. "He told a story about opening for Richard Pryor when he was 19, and how Richard was so sick at that point that he left midset, saying he couldn't do it anymore. He said this was like that, except he wasn't sick. … The heckling got bad because it was just horrible to watch."

Watch Chappelle make his exit in the video below.