Poor Dave Chappelle. The comedian's rough few years didn't get any easier last night when he stopped his set at Alonzo Mourning's Summer Groove charity comedy night and remained on stage in a bizarre non-performance.
"Things got so bad one woman yelled, 'Can you just tell a joke so we can enjoy ourselves?'" wrote CNN analyst Roland Martin, who began documenting the night's proceedings live on Twitter.
"He got texted four times during the show and actually checked them."
Chappelle, who famously walked away from his Comedy Central hit 'Chappelle's Show' a few years ago, has been making a slow return to standup by testing out new material in mostly unannounced club appearances.
But his much-heralded appearance at the Summer Groove at the Seminole Hard Rock was cut short when he was apparently distracted by audience members filming him, and it was all downhill from there.
"I'm just not understanding what threw him off," wrote Martin. "He's complained about folks videotaping his set, yelling out loud. I don't get it."
"Chappelle says this is a 'test of wills.' He keeps saying 'tick tock' and he has 'nothing but time.' He's just staring at the crowd and sighing."
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After roughly 45 minutes, the comedian was all but played off the stage by a bewildered DJ Irie.
"That was...awkward," wrote the Miami Heat's official DJ, adding, on Saturday morning, that while Chappelle's disaster was "out of the ordinary," it was "the longest hour of my life."
Others, however, had strong words for the audience. Actress Gabrielle Union sent the following message on her own Twitter account: "For the idiots who heckled Dave Chappelle tonight, no one paid to see [you]. Way to ruin it for everyone else!"
