A few weeks after his controversial appearance at Jeff Ross’ Roast Battle event inside The Belly Room of The Comedy Store, stand-up comedian Donnell Rawlings would dedicate an episode of his podcast to share his thoughts on the situation.
Throughout the podcast, Rawlings is looking to set the record for his actions that evening and explains why he respectfully lost control of the mic.
In late February, Rawlings went viral after an edited video surfaced on social media of him having what many would consider a “mental breakdown” while intoxicated as he halted the show to share his harsh criticism of the event contestants and the live audience. It would only escalate as the contestants would throw their own harsh remarks towards Rawlings, and the live audience began booing “The Chappelle Show” star.
Donnell Rawlings: Donnell Rawlings is best known as a cast member on the Comedy Central sketch comedy TV series Chappelle’s Show and the HBO drama The Wire.
Rawlings is most notable for frequently appearing in sketches on Chappelle’s Show and hosting the third season along with Charlie Murphy. His catchphrase on the show was “I’m rich, biaaaaatch!” (which is played at the end of every episode as part of Dave Chappelle’s vanity card) as well as frequently adding “Son!” at the end of each sentence.
He demonstrates his knowledge of broken Korean he learned in the Air Force in the sketches “Player Hater’s Ball” and “The Time Haters”, the latter of which was featured in the “Failures” episode. Rawlings reprises his role as the hater “Beautiful”, known for wearing a Jheri curl and a suit similar to ones that Little Richard has worn. In the sketches, he responds to the comments of Korean hater “Mr. Roboto” with insults in Korean. He reprised the role of Beautiful on Chappelle’s episode of Saturday Night Live.
Rawlings appears in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and in a cameo appearance in the music video for Jim Jones’ “We Fly High” (Ballin’ Remix). He was a regular on The Ricki Lake Show mostly as a judge on various challenge episodes.
