Bill BURR "defends" (describes) performing in Saudi comedy event (50 U.S. comedians, some for million $$ each)
Bill BURR "defends" (describes) performing in Saudi comedy event (50 U.S. comedians, some for million $$ each)
In the list of comedians, my disappointments: Bobby LEE, Andrew SANTINO, Gabriel IGLESIAS, BURR. In this article, BURR doesn't really address "selling out" to a despotic and murderous regime, just describes his surprises at finding the Saudi audiences to be fun loving and non-threatening. Hmmm.
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https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/bill-burr-defends-performing-controversial-191720627.html
Bill Burr Defends Performing at Controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival: “They’re Just Like Us”
.... “It was great to experience that part of the world and to be a part of the first comedy festival over there in Saudi Arabia,” Burr said. “The royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled. The comedians that I’ve been talking to are saying, ‘Dude, you can feel [the audience] wanted it. They want to see real stand-up comedy.’ It was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely top three experiences I’ve had. I think it’s going to lead to a lot of positive things.”
Burr said the restrictions on what comedians could say had been softened by the festival after some back and forth (Burr didn’t specify with whom). “When they first set it up, the rules on what they had about what you could and couldn’t say in Saudi Arabia, [organizers were told], ‘If you want some good comedians, this isn’t going to work.’ And, to their credit, they said, ‘All right, what do we got to do?’ And they just negotiated it all the way down to just a couple things, which were, basically: Don’t make fun of royals [and] religion.” (The speech restrictions were posted online by comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, who turned down the festival’s offer to attend, and it’s unclear if these were the rules from before or after the talks.) ....
The pop singer and humanitarian Sting has likewise spoken out about this concept
[Joseph S. Nye popularized the term “soft power” in the 1980s] in the past when defending his performance in Uzbekistan in 2009.
“I am well aware of the Uzbek president’s appalling reputation in the field of human rights as well as the environment,” Sting said at the time. “I made the decision to play there in spite of that. I have come to believe that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counter-productive, where proscribed states are further robbed of the open commerce of ideas and art and as a result become even more closed, paranoid and insular.”
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/27/nx-s1-5555462/saudi-comedy-festival-chappelle-hart-maron
Marc Maron, Human Rights Watch and others slam Saudi comedy festival
.... "From the folks that brought you 9/11. Two weeks of laughter in the desert, don't miss it!'" joked Maron acerbically. "The same guy that's gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a f***ing suitcase. But don't let that stop the yucks, it's gonna be a good time!" ....
Big name pop music acts including Mariah Carey, The Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber all earned criticism for opting to perform in the country in recent years. "Doesn't she know Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive and murderous regimes on the planet?" wrote the activism group Code Pink in a 2019 statement calling for Carey to cancel her show that year. ....
Comedian Tim Dillon said on his podcast last month that he signed up for financial reasons. He said he had been offered "a large sum of money" — $375,000 for one performance — and said that other comedians had been offered as much as $1.6 million. He told his detractors to "get over it," adding, "So what if they have slaves, they're paying me enough to look the other way."
But in an episode of the Tim Dillon Podcast last week, the comedian announced he'd been removed from the lineup for the comments he made about the country's record on slavery. (NPR reached out to Saudi's General Entertainment Authority for verification, but has not yet heard back.) "I addressed it in a funny way and they fired me," Dillon said on his podcast. "I certainly wasn't gonna show up in your country and insult the people that are paying me the money."
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