Diplo and Chris Rock barely made it out of Burning Man.
When monsoon thunderstorms left thousands of festival attendees stranded in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert on Saturday, the DJ was determined to show up to his Washington, D.C. show that evening — and a stranger came to both of their rescues.
“A fan offered Chris Rock and I a ride out of Burning Man in the back of a pickup,” the 44-year-old, whose real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, captioned an Instagram video of their escape.
“I legit walked the side of the road for hours with my thumb out cuz I have a show in dc tonight and didnt want to let yall down,” he wrote, joking that all Rock, 58, “could think about was a f—king cold brew.”
Diplo concluded, “Shoutout to this guy for making the smart purchase of a truck not knowing it was for this exact moment.”
The group subsequently hitched a ride with “hippies with a van in the next town” and “negotiat[ed] a deal to give [them] a two-hour ride to the airport.”
The Grammy winner posted pictures of himself safe and sound onboard a plane after the excursion.
“They didn’t believe we would walk six miles in the mud. No one believed we would get to DC for the show tonight,” he captioned a mud-stained selfie. “But God did.”
Later that evening, the songwriter gave his followers an update after a three-hour set.
“For those of you who think I wasn’t at DC, I just got done DJing,” he said while filming from a bathtub. “Mud still on my face. I’m in a f–king Four Seasons. Why would I be at Burning Man still, you idiots?”
Diplo was at the festival on Friday to perform a set from a hot air balloon, with rain pummeling the desert later that evening and into Saturday.
Amid a “shelter in place” order and requests by festival organizers to conserve food and water, the entrance has been closed for the “remainder of the event,” which was expected to run into Monday.
Rock gave glimpses of the pandemonium, writing via Instagram Stories that “because of the flooding, the port-o-potties reportedly can’t be emptied and because the gates are closed, people can’t get in to fill generators or deliver supplies.”
With a flash flood watch in effect through Monday, it is unclear when the 70,000 Burning Man attendees will get the all clear to leave.
