Internet comic Druski has built his comedy empire on outlandish character work and boundary-pushing content, but this weekend, the internet sensation found himself at the center of a heated debate that divided his massive fan base. The viral sensation, who usually keeps everything super light, is now smack dab in the middle of race politics.

Druski, whose real name is Drew Desbordes, sparked intense discourse across social media platforms when he released a skit featuring himself in whiteface, portraying a character named Preston.

Druski’s controversial whiteface skit has fans comparing him to Dave Chappelle. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images; ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The video, captioned “WhiteBoy That’s Accepted By the Hood,” showcased Druski’s signature character work as he transformed into Preston, complete with lighter skin, hair, facial hair, tattoos, and streetwear.

The clip shows Preston as he navigates everyday Black hood interactions, a run-in with the police, and a refusal to say the N-word despite being invited to the cookout. The sketch follows him through various moments with friends, social media banter with his Black girlfriend, and ends with him returning home, where Preston’s white parents remind him to drop the slang when asking about dinner.

Within days of posting, the content exploded across platforms, accumulating almost 1.6 million likes on Instagram in 2 days, 11.8 million views on TikTok, and a staggering 81.2 million views on Twitter.

The reaction was swift and polarizing, with X users questioning the double standard they perceived in racial comedy.

“This racist af just imagine the slander if the races were reversed smh,” one commenter wrote, while another echoed similar sentiments: “Imagine if a white guy painted himself like a black guy and did this. Racism is cool if it’s against whites?”

Some noted how spot on the skit was. The debate intensified as some users began drawing immediate comparisons to comedy legends who had ventured into similar territory.

“Druski might be better than Dave Chappelle skit wise lmaoo,” one person tweeted, while another offered a critique, “It was funny when Dave Chappelle did it. It was funny when Snoop Dogg did it. But it feels like you’re just doing it for the sake of it. Commit to the bit bro, what’s the point otherwise.”

In 2014, Snoop dressed in a blonde bob wig and gold wire-rimmed glasses playing a character he calls Todd. In the 2007 spoof film “Epic Movie,” comedian Kevin Hart portrayed a parody of Silas from “The Da Vinci Code” — an albino character originally played by Paul Bettany.

However, defenders of the comedy style pointed to precedent, with one user reminding critics, “Robert Downey Jr literally did it in Tropic Thunder lmao.”

Another mocked the critics, “’Imagine if white people did this?’ Yeah and imagine if a majority of black people owned, dehumanized and demonized white slaves.”

The comparison to Dave Chappelle wasn’t coincidental, as the legendary comedian got some backlash for his character Chuck Taylor, a fictional white news anchor on “The Dave Chappelle Show.”

Chappelle’s approach to crossing racial lines in comedy was deliberate and layered with social commentary about media representation and societal perceptions.

In a 2001 appearance on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” Chappelle jokingly announced he was changing his comedic style because he had been “offensive to too many people,” before launching into an extended bit about his white characters.

During that memorable segment, Chappelle explained his methodology behind racial impersonation, noting that when he performed white characters, he wasn’t mocking how white people talk but rather “parroting a simple aspect of the white speech pattern — that is, the absence of rhythm in it.”

Chappelle’s most provocative observation centered on news broadcasting (a nod to his character), theorizing that most newscasters are white because their speech patterns can deliver terrible news in a way that sounds less harsh.

For Druski, whose rise to fame has been meteoric across social media, this latest controversy represents both the power and peril of viral content.

‘It Was Funny When Dave Chappelle Did It’: Druski Faces Backlash Over Controversial Whiteface Skit That Has Fans Calling Out the Double Standards of Comedy