David Chappelle converted to Islamic in 1998 after doing some soul searching as he said in an interview with Times Magazine. He told Time in a May 2005 interview, "I don’t normally talk about my religion publicly because I don’t want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is beautiful if you learn it the right way." 

In 2005, Chappelle walked away from a $50 million deal with Comedy Central to do Season 3 of The Chappelle Show. He felt that the environment at the network was not healthy, so he went on a spiritual retreat to South Africa.