https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/sep/30/riyadh-comedy-festival-saudi-arabia
Billed as the biggest comedy festival in the world, the inaugural Riyadh Comedy festival, which is running 26 September to 9 October, features some of the biggest names in US comedy. The lineup features Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, Whitney Cummings, Pete Davidson, Aziz Ansari and Jo Koy, among many others who are all taking their fees directly from the Saudi government. These comedians have already received criticism from Human Rights Watch, which argued in a news release that the festival is an effort by the Saudi regime to whitewash its notorious abuses. This whitewashing comes amid significant increase in repression, said HRW researcher Joey Shea, including a crackdown on free speech, which many of these comedians defend but people in Saudi Arabia are completely denied.
Comedians performing as the festivals headliners do not seem particularly concerned about the criticism or the alleged wrongdoing. One reporter was killed by the government unfortunate, but not a fucking hill that Im gonna die on, Jim Jefferies said on Theo Vons podcast in August, arguing it is for the greater good that freedom-of-speech machines such as himself bestow their edgy material on the kingdom and its subjects. (Since making the comments, Jefferies has since disappeared from the festivals lineup; his representatives did not respond to inquiries about this.) Distefano, chatting with Halkias, joked that an upside to the kingdoms repression of women is that his fiancee cant come with him. Mark Normand, on the other hand, joked he would bring his wife to show her how good she has it in America: I want to be like, You see? You think Im an asshole? Well, theyll cut your clit off, bitch.
Some comics were transparent about their willingness to ignore their moral convictions in order to play at the festival. So what, they have slaves? asked Tim Dillon in a podcast segment that led to his firing from the festival.
Theyre paying me enough money to look the other way. Pete Davidson offered a similar take, acknowledging in a chat with Von that people have asked him why, given his fathers death on 9/11, he would take a paycheck from the Saudi government. He did not address the criticism directly, but he did suggest he was happy to forget 9/11 for the right price: I just know I get the routing, and then I see the number, and I go, Ill go. How high is that number? According to Dillon, pretty high: in the same podcast that got him fired, he said the organizers offered him $375,000 and claimed that some comedians were offered millions. Gillis did not reveal how much the organizers offered him, but he did say that when he initially refused, they doubled the bag. Tough news for Dillon, who elsewhere claimed he asked for $500,000 but had to settle for less.
Wow. They got Bill Burr didnt expect him to be bought.