When it comes to comedy giants, few are bigger than Dave Chappelle and Katt Williams. And there tends to be an unbreakable camaraderie amongst vets, so many fans were surprised to see Williams and Chappelle in a war of words on Twitter a few years ago.
On a recent episode of The Midnight Miracle, the podcast Chappelle hosts alongside rappers Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli, he and Williams told the true story behind their beef.
According to Chappelle, it all started because he arrived late to Twitter. “I went to see who was using it and it was a fake Dave Chappelle. This n— had my pictures, this when I thought Twitter was brand new,” he explained. “And I thought, you know, put a stop to this, and then I started reading this n—’s tweets and they were hilarious.”
The Mark Twain Prize recipient said he became obsessed with his impersonator, going as far as making reading the imposters tweets with his morning coffee.
It was all fun and games until the fake Chappelle began to go after celebrities; some of which the comedy great knew personally, including Williams.
“Katt Williams wasn’t having that s—,” said Chappelle. Shortly after, an account believed, at the time, to be Williams, himself, began to respond to the fake Dave Chappelle. “The problem was Katt Williams was saying things to fake Dave Chappelle that was hurting real Dave Chappelle’s feelings”, Dave explained, before detailing a confrontation between the two in Los Angeles.
“I said, Yo, Katt can I talk to you?’ and he’s like, ‘Of course.’ And I go, ‘Away from Suge [Knight],’” said Chappelle before sharing that they went on to realize that neither of them actually had accounts on the social media app but that it was a beef between two people impersonating them.
“I still don’t have a Twitter account”, revealed Williams. “It turns out it was fake Dave Chappelle and fake Katt Williams. But Katt’s fake was funnier than my fake,” said Chappelle.
Though the legendary “beef” between the pair took place over a decade ago, fans were happy to hear the two set the record straight.