LOS ANGELES — The wannabe rapper arrested for tackling Dave Chappelle on stage claims he was inspired to attack the funnyman by Will Smith’s Academy Awards slap of Chris Rock.
Isaiah Lee, 23, sat down for a second jailhouse interview with The Post Monday at the Twin Towers Correctional facility in downtown Los Angeles, where he applauded Smith for smacking Rock across the face on live TV after the comic made a “tasteless” joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s baldness.
“That’s not right what [Chris Rock] said about his wife, calling her GI Jane,” said Lee, referencing a crack the former “SNL” star made about Pinkett Smith’s hair loss from alopecia, which Smith has said is what spurred him to walk on stage and hit Rock.
Lee said Smith was “standing up for his wife” during the infamous celeb-on-celeb smack heard ’round the world, which inspired Lee to storm the stage and tackle Chappelle during the May 3 “Netflix Is a Joke” show after he made quips about LGBTQ people and homelessness.
“I wanted him to know that next time, he should consider first running his material by people it could affect,” Lee claimed. “I wanted Dave Chappelle and people to know that these are things you need to be more sensitive about and not joke about.”
He said his goal was to stand up for what he believed in — inspired by the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” star.
During an interview on Saturday, Lee told The Post he is a bisexual sexual abuse survivor who previously dealt with homelessness and was “triggered” by the “Chappelle Show” star’s jokes.
But on Monday, he admitted the attack was also partially driven by an effort to raise his public profile as a budding rap star who goes by the stage name “NoName_Trapper” and once put out a song about the Emmy-winning Chappelle.
“I’m not going to lie … it was a bit of clout-chasing,” Lee said of his decision to jump on stage.
“In Hollywood, you know they say there is no such thing as bad publicity. I rap about these things in my music and knew it would get attention.”
The caught-on-camera tackle has already earned Lee some celebrity status behind bars from fellow inmates, he said.
“They come up to me and ask, ‘Hey, are you the guy who went up to Dave Chappelle?'” Lee said.
“I feel safer here right now than being outside because I’m going to need to find and hire security.”
Lee, who insisted on Saturday that he didn’t have mental health issues, claimed on Monday that he does suffer from bipolar depression disorder but was on his medications at the time of the attack.
“There are plenty of famous people who have bipolar disorder — Kanye West, Demi Lovato, Eminem –and they are able to speak about it,” Lee said.
“Just because you are bipolar, it doesn’t stop you from … reaching success.”
As for the night of the attack, he claimed two other superstars — Busta Rhymes and Jamie Foxx — “jumped” him backstage immediately following the attack and repeatedly pulled his hair and kicked him until he was left gasping for air.
“They were stomping on me all over and on my ribs and said, ‘Are you stupid, kid? Why the hell did you do that?’ ” Lee recalled.
“I couldn’t say anything. They kept kicking me. For a few days, it was hard for me to breathe. At one point, someone spit on me, but I don’t know who.”
Immediately after Lee rushed Chappelle, Foxx was one of the first people to jump onstage to help and the comedian later thanked the “Ray” Oscar winner for the assistance, joking that the Brooklyn-born Rhymes helped “stomp” the assailant.
But a few days after the incident, Chappelle’s publicist told TMZ the remarks were part of an act and denied Rhymes and Foxx were involved with the takedown.
Reps for Rhymes and Foxx didn’t immediately return requests for comment from The Post.
Lee, who is facing four misdemeanor counts from the assault, was upset to hear the entertainer wanted him hit with felony charges instead of just low-level battery raps.
“He can have his opinion,” Lee said.
“But that’s messed up when a black man would want another black man to go to jail for a long time.”
