Chappelle Shows in the ER

Tue., Jul. 17, 2007 5:05 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Dave Chappelle was a little drier than usual this weekend.

The Comedy Central-eschewing funnyman made a trip to a San Francisco emergency room, where he was treated for exhaustion and dehydration, a friend of Chappelle's told E! Online.

"He stayed up and did a show [at the Punch Line Comedy Club]…and at the time he did it, he did not get enough water to drink and had a little bit of dehydration," Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada said. "I spoke to him and he's okay."

The confirmation of Chappelle's whereabouts for the 12 hours he spent receiving food and fluids at the hospital puts to rest rumors that the comedian, whose mental status was questioned when he skipped out on a third season of Chappelle's Show, had checked into rehab.

The Block Party host's camp has put the kibosh on that version of events, saying that Chappelle was treated for exhaustion and dehydration and then went home.

"He's so thin, and he gets so creative he forgets to eat and drink," Masada said. "I love Dave. I've known him since he was 15 years old. His biggest problem is he gets in a creative mode and forgets to eat. He's on the stage for six or seven hours. Everybody would have a bottle of water and he'll have nothing."

Starting a little after 10:30 p.m. on Apr. 15 and finishing up in the wee hours of the morning, Chappelle set a Laugh Factory record for time spent doing stand-up after performing for six hours and seven minutes at the Hollywood club, demolishing Dane Cook's personal best of three hours and 50 minutes.

According to Masada, the 33-year-old funnyman didn't even stop for a bathroom break.

"He's got to treat himself a little better," the club owner said. "Everybody's trying to make the issue more than it is, but the issue is he just doesn't eat or drink. He gets in the zone of creating and he just forgets."

Chappelle memorably hightailed it from the zone in the spring of 2005, bailing on a $50 million contract with Comedy Central that would have meant at least two more seasons of his Emmy-nominated sketch show.

The married father of two eventually turned up in South Africa. Denying reports that he was off seeking psychiatric treatment, Chappelle later explained he had just needed to get away from it all. The money, the pressure, the network, the fans—everything.

"I felt in a lot of instances I was deliberately being put through stress, because when you're a guy who generates money, people have a vested interested in controlling you," Chappelle said during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show last February.

"I would go to work on the show and I felt awful every day, that’s not the way it was," he said. "I felt like some kind of prostitute or something. If I feel so bad, why keep on showing up to this place? I'm going to Africa. The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching."

Three third-season episodes of Chappelle's Show were cobbled together from footage shot before the star took a powder and premiered on Comedy Central last summer.

—Additional reporting by Josh Grossberg