Get the Scoop on Dave Chappelle’s Wife—And Why They Keep Their Family Life Private

Dave Chappelle is one of the world’s most renowned stand-up comedians, thanks in large part to his groundbreaking Comedy Central sketch series, Chappelle’sShow. But for all of the funnyman’s fame and fortune, his wife of 20 years, Elaine Mendoza Erfe Chappelle, has stayed with him through better or worse—and for richer or for poorer.

“She was with me when I was poor,” Chappelle revealed to Howard Stern years ago. Chappelle also said that Elaine has helped him weather the rockier parts of celebrity, such as when he infamously walked away from Chappelle's Show in 2006 amid a host of personal issues.

"My wife, if it gets real bad, she’ll let me know, like, ‘Oh, you should look into this.’ But for the most part, I try not to pay attention to it because you don’t want to be careful as a comedian," he explained to Stern about keeping his distance from his own notoriety. "I try to keep my business small enough so it can still be authentic enough.”

Despite all the headlines, it's clear that these two have managed to maintain a super-low profile and super-content relationship. Here’s what we know about Dave Chappelle and Elaine Mendoza Erfe Chappelle, his longtime love.

Who is Dave Chappelle’s wife?

Elaine Mendoza Erfe Chappelle was reportedly born to Filipino parents on August 31, 1974 (which makes her almost exactly a year younger than Chappelle) and grew up in Brooklyn. It’s been widely reported that she once aspired to become a professional chef, but ultimately decided to devote her time to raising the couple’s three kids: sons Sulayman and Ibrahim, and daughter Sanaa. (In 2014, Chappelle joked during a stand-up show at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, “My wife is Asian, and my kids have somehow turned out to be Puerto Rican.”)

How did Dave Chappelle meet his wife?

Years ago, the now-48-year-old Chappelle told Howard Stern that he met his future wife in Brooklyn. (Stern and co-host Robin Quivers also made some crude jokes about the couple based on hurtful Asian stereotypes, which allegedly prompted Chappelle to decide he wouldn’t appear on their show again.)

One of the rockiest periods of Chappelle’s marriage took place in the mid-2000s, when he famously fled to South African at the height of his Chappelle’s Show success. Rumors swirled about the reasons why—everything from mental health issues to substance abuse problems—and the trip effectively cancelled the $50 million contract Chappelle had signed with Comedy Central to continue his show.

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Since then, Chappelle has talked frequently about how his wife wasn’t thrilled about how he abandoned his show and his contract. In 2006, he told Conan O’Brien, “My wife’s still a little salty… She’s not mad at me, but don’t think you’re going to walk away from $50 million and your wife’s just gonna be cool with it.”

Who are Dave Chappelle's kids?

The Chappelles have three children: sons Sulayman (born in 2001) and Ibrahim (born in 2003), and daughter Sonal, born in 2009. It seems all three kids keep very low profiles, with hardly a trace of them across social media. However, in 2019, their dad Dave did open up on his Netflix stand-up special, Dave Chappelle: Equanimity & The Bird Revelation, about how bittersweet it feels to watch your kids grow up and not need you as much.

"I see my age in my children. I came home from the road not long ago—I was gone for weeks and weeks, and when I came back, nobody was home. Not one person in my family thought maybe I'd like to see them when I got back," he recalled. "That s**t was a wakeup call. When my kids were little and the tour bus would pull up to the house, [they 'd] spill out. 'Dad is home, hooray!'" Then as the years went on, they'd get less interested. 'Hey everybody, look: It's Mr. Promises back from the road.'"

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Chappelle also told a story on that special about the time he found marijuana paraphernalia in son Sulayman's bedrom.

"I went into my older son's room... and I found these notebooks and I started going through the notebooks," he confessed. "There was all this wonderful poetry in it... Then I looked through his drawers and I opened his middle drawer and I found his rolling papers. I looked down at them papers and said, 'Oh, that's where the poetry's coming from.'"

Meanwhile, Sonal has followed her father into showbiz (at least for now). She played a cameo role in 2018's A Star Is Born as her real-life dad's pretend daughter. The two later appeared together on the Toronto International Film Festival's red carpet for the movie's debut there.

Where do Dave Chappelle and his wife live?

Soon after the ComedyCentral drama, Chappelle and his wife permanently relocated their family to the outskirts of the small town of Yellow Springs, Ohio (population: about 3,500) where they still live today. Yellow Springs is also where Chappelle spent a lot of his childhood, as his father was a dean of students and professor of vocal performance at Antioch College, which is located there. Chappelle told CBS News in 2017 that he appreciates the way his Yellow Springs neighbors leave him be. “It’s almost like a nature reserve where they’ll let me run free,” he said.

However, in an April 2021 appearance on Naomi Campbell’s podcast, Chappelle hinted that he may be ready to return to Africa—and that he got the idea from StevieWonder. “He said, ‘I am moving to Ghana so that I can be valued and respected more,’” Chappelle recalled Wonder saying. “As a Black American, who amongst us is more valued and respected than Stevie Wonder? The idea that he would feel this way at this stage in his life and career... I thought I’ll follow him over there, or I’ll go myself. I’ll do it for him.”

Next, Chappelle's Show co-creator Neal Brennan on 3 Mics, Amy Schumer and 6 cool things about himself.