Just this year, comedian Dave Chappelle made his triumphant return to the world of stand-up comedy. The comedian, who’s known for his observations and routines regarding race, couldn’t have made his comeback at a better time. Chappelle returned to the stage right at the peak of the scandal involving Donald Sterling and his racist tirade. Despite the fact that Chappelle thinks what Sterling said is outrageous, he believes Sterling should have been allowed to keep the LA Clippers.

“Ultimately, I don’t think he should have lost his team,” Chappelle said in an interview with GQ. “I don’t like the idea that someone could record a secret conversation and that a person could lose their assets from that, even though I think what he said was awful. When you think about the intimacy of a situation, like, can a man just chill with his mistress in peace?”

.@DaveChappelle doesn’t like the idea of being secretly recorded http://t.co/HpDBo9X9YE pic.twitter.com/9uEWzB11B8

— TheWrap (@TheWrap) November 18, 2014

For Chappelle this is an issue about freedom of speech. He said in the same interview, “I just don’t like when things like that happen, because if they take s–t away for things that people say that are objectionable, I may not have anything in a few years. Granted, I don’t think I say s–t like ‘Stop bringing white people to my game.’”

Chappelle famously walked out of the production of his successful TV show because he was unhappy with the direction the show was taking. He said in the interview about this particular point in his career, “I would go to work on the show and I felt awful every day, that’s not the way it was. 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.”

Dave Chappelle on Donald Sterling (explicit content)