Back in May, head of the Saudi Arabian Entertainment Authority Turki Al-Sheikh announced the country’s plans to host a gigantic international comedy festival featuring the “best 50 stand-up comedians in the world.” By all indications, the festival’s organizers made a sincere attempt to deliver on this lofty promise, assembling a lineup of, if not the best comedians in the world, certainly the most famous. Four months later, the Riyadh Comedy Festival kicks off on Friday, September 26; it will run through October 10. If it seems like superstar comedians, many of whom are vocal defenders of free speech, would attract raised eyebrows for their decision to perform for a government known for political censorship and blatant human-rights abuses — they have. Here’s a quick summary of all the discourse and controversy enshrouding the Riyadh Comedy Festival so far.
Who’s on the lineup for the Riyadh Comedy Festival?
The extensive list of comedy megastars performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival includes Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, Gabriel Iglesias, Aziz Ansari, Louis C.K., Andrew Schulz, Pete Davidson, Tom Segura, Chris Tucker, Whitney Cummings, and more. The full lineup can be seen here.
Why are people denouncing the festival and its performers?
Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization that monitors human-rights standards all over the world, has accused comedians performing at the festival of being complicit in deflecting attention from Saudi Arabia’s “brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.” The timing of the festival, the org points out, coincides with the seventh anniversary of the state-sponsored death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. They also point out that the fest is occurring as the government is responsible for “an unprecedented surge in executions in 2025, without apparent due process.” (“Saudi authorities had executed at least 241 people in 2025, as of August 5,” the organization tallies.) The organization has called on comedians performing at the festival to use the platform to call for the “release of detained Saudi activists.”
So how are comedians rationalizing their attendance?
Only a few comedians have spoken about why they’re performing in Riyadh, despite the moral questions and building backlash, but those who have have tended to point to the big paycheck. Comedian Tim Dillon claimed on his podcast that he was offered $375,000, while some higher-profile comedians were offered as much as $1.6 million. Chris Distefano said on an episode of the podcast 2 Bears, 1 Cave that he contemplated declining the opportunity but his fiancée encouraged him to take the gig to help pay for their wedding, house, and children. Pete Davidson offered a similar rationale on a September 23 episode of This Past Weekend With Theo Von. “I see the number and I go, ‘I’ll go.’” he said. The comedian added that he’s received additional “flak” because his father died during the September 11 attacks, referencing the fact that the Saudi Arabian government is widely believed to have funded Al-Qaeda.
Other comedians have pointed to the inconsistency of balking at performing in Saudi Arabia when other governments around the world also sponsor morally unjustifiable actions. Jim Jefferies, on the August 20 episode of This Past Weekend, for example: “People have been going, ‘Oh, how dare you go over there after they killed a reporter?’ … You don’t think our governments fucking bump people?”
What have comedians who aren’t attending said about it?
Marc Maron and Zach Woods both released clips online poking fun at the Riyadh Comedy Festival and the performers who are participating. In a video on Instagram, Woods facetiously defends the festival against the “dweebazoids” who say that people shouldn’t do comedy in Saudi Arabia. “Name one comedian who hasn’t whored themself out to a dictator,” he jokes. “Sinbad, in the ’80s, would go perform for dying Nazis hidden out in Argentina. Mr. Bean would do private shows for Idi Amin.” Maron, meanwhile, released a snippet of a stand-up set in which he pondered how the festival was promoted: “From the folks that brought you 9/11: two weeks of laughter in the desert.” He added that it’s “easy” for him to take the “high road” given he was not asked to perform at the festival.
Comedians who have said they were asked to perform at the festival but turned it down include Stavros Halkias and Shane Gillis. “I can’t do it,” Halkias said while talking to Distefano on the aforementioned 2 Bears, 1 Cave episode; Gillis said on his podcast, Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, that he turned down “a significant bag” to perform at the festival. “I took a principled stand,” he said. “You don’t 9/11 your friends.”
Have any comedians dropped out of the fest?
Dillon, who was initially scheduled to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, claimed on a September 20 episode of his podcast that he was removed from the festival’s lineup because the organizers took issue with jokes he made during a previous podcast episode about Saudi Arabia’s use of slave labor.
Another scheduled performer, Nimesh Patel, posted an Instagram Story on September 25 indicating that, after some additional thought, he made the decision to back out of the festival. “Nah I’m not going to Saudi Arabia,” he wrote. “I canceled last week. I did initially say yes. They offered a lot of money. And since you’re checking my pockets, I’m not in a position to say no to life changing money. But it wasn’t life changing. So I get to morally grandstand about saying thanks but no thanks. But ask yourself: If you were offered enough money to retire your dad, or spend a few more months at home with your family, or buy a 911, would you forget 9/11?”