{"id":195423,"date":"2025-10-07T13:17:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T13:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/195423\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T13:17:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T13:17:21","slug":"david-cross-condemns-taking-riyadh-comedy-festival-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/195423\/","title":{"rendered":"David Cross condemns taking Riyadh Comedy Festival comics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The star-studded lineup of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Riyadh Comedy Festival is still catching heat from peers back in the U.S. After drawing criticism from the likes of Marc Maron<\/a> and Atsuko Okatsuka, David Cross joined the fray, posting on his website<\/a> that he was \u201cdisgusted, and deeply disappointed in this whole gross thing.\u201d He noted that he \u201cwas not offered the gig but it should go without saying that there\u2019s not enough money for me to help these depraved, awful people put a \u2018fun face\u2019 on their crimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cross lamented that the lineup includes \u201csome of my HEROES!\u201d He wrote, \u201cNow look, some of you folks don\u2019t stand for anything so you don\u2019t have any credibility to lose, but my god, Dave [Chappelle] and Louie [C.K.] and Bill [Burr], and Jim [Jeffries]? Clearly you guys don\u2019t give a shit about what the rest of us think, but how can any of us take any of you seriously ever again? All of your bitching about \u2018cancel culture\u2019 and \u2018freedom of speech\u2019 and all that shit? Done. You don\u2019t get to talk about it ever again. By now we\u2019ve all seen the contract you had to sign.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Okatsuka previously posted<\/a> the Riyadh contract from her own offer for the festival, which included a long list of \u201ccensorship rules\u201d forbidding jokes that criticize Saudi Arabia or its royal family. Tim Dillon was dropped from the festival for joking about the country\u2019s \u201cslaves\u201d ahead of the event, but he said he\u2019d been offered $375,000 for one performance and other comedians were offered as much as $1.6 million (via NPR<\/a>). Pete Davidson, who has caught particular heat due to the Saudi regime\u2019s connection to the 9\/11 terrorist attack that killed his father, said he was unbothered by the criticism and conspiracies kicked up by the festival. \u201cI get the routing, and I see the number, and I go, \u2018I\u2019ll go,’\u201d he said<\/a> during an appearance on Theo Von\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand how being rich can make someone such a whore,\u201d Cross wrote in his post. \u201cPoor people desperate to improve their (or their families lives), sure. Still not acceptable but I can understand the desperation to put food on the table. But this? I mean, it\u2019s not like this is some commercial for a wireless service or a betting app. This is truly the definition of \u2018blood money\u2019. You might as well do commercials for Lockheed Martin or Zyklon B. Holy shit, I remember the backlash I got for appearing in Alvin and the Chipmunks! You would\u2019ve thought that I had taken money from a bunch of people responsible for funding Al Qaeda!\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle Wolf shares some jokes she would’ve done at the Riyadh Comedy Festival<\/a>Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka posts contract after turning down Riyadh Comedy Festival<\/a><\/p>\n

In a press release<\/a>, Human Rights Watch stated that the\u00a0Riyadh Comedy Festival was an attempt by Saudi Arabia \u201cto deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.\u201d The org stated that \u201cto avoid contributing to laundering the Saudi government\u2019s reputation,\u201d participating comics \u201cshould use the comedy festival to publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists.\u201d HRW reached out \u201cto the representatives and management of a group of announced participating comedians to request a meeting about Saudi Arabia\u2019s human rights crisis,\u201d but didn\u2019t hear back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, Cross concluded his post with a call for readers to donate to the Human Rights Foundation and a message to the comedians participating in the Riyadh Comedy Festival. He wrote, \u201cUnless you open your sets with, \u2018This is dedicated to all of the widows and widowers and kids orphaned by this bloodthirsty oppressive regime especially from the zany shenanigans on 9\/11. Never Forget Motherfuckers! Alright, so it\u2019s great to be here. I\u2019m gonna be killing it tonight! But in the good way! Straight up. No MbS.\u2019 then your hypocrisy will never not be noted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The star-studded lineup of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Riyadh Comedy Festival is still catching heat from peers back in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-195423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}