As Sarandos continues to receive blowback from his comments defending Chappelle's special — including a second company-wide memo he sent out to Netflix employees on Oct. 11 — comedian Hannah Gadsby is one of the latest people to dig into him for his stance. In his second note, Sarandos stated that Netflix is reportedly "working hard to ensure marginalized communities aren't defined by a single story" and is "increasing diversity on the content team itself." To support his argument, he referenced titles like Sex Education, Orange Is the New Black, Control Z, and Gadsby's standup special that also accompany Chappelle's on the streaming service. Well, Gadsby wasn't too happy with his statement and took to her Instagram page to blast him.
"Hey Ted Sarandos! Just a quick note to let you know that I would prefer if you didn't drag my name into your mess," she wrote in a post. "Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle's fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial world view." She also added that the co-CEO "didn't pay me nearly enough to deal with the real world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge, Ted. F*ck you and your amoral algorithm cult."
Of the $20 million that Gadsby references, it could be a nod to the article Bloomberg published reporting on the millions of dollars Netflix has spent on Chappelle's numerous specials over the years. Those numbers were reportedly leaked by a Netflix employee, and the streamer responded by firing said employee. "We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company," a spokesperson from Netflix said. "We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company."
