{"id":198529,"date":"2025-10-08T19:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/198529\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T19:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:41:07","slug":"bill-burr-calls-critics-of-riyadh-comedy-festival-sanctimonious-and-phoney-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/198529\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Burr calls critics of Riyadh comedy festival \u2018sanctimonious\u2019 and \u2018phoney\u2019 | Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Burr has defended his appearance at the controversial Riyadh comedy festival<\/a>, calling his critics \u201csanctimonious cunts\u201d.<\/p>\n

The comedian has been under fire, alongside Kevin Hart, Louis CK, Aziz Ansari and Dave Chappelle, for being on the lineup for what was billed as \u201cthe world\u2019s largest comedy festival\u201d. The Human Rights Watch called out the event as a distraction, aiming to focus on something light rather than the \u201csoaring number of executions\u201d taking place while comedians such as Marc Maron and Shane Gillis expressed disappointment. David Cross wrote that he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d in a statement.<\/p>\n

Burr spoke to Conan O\u2019Brien as part of a live podcast, and said he felt \u201cwonderful\u201d about his appearance and doesn\u2019t \u201cgive a fuck what all these phoney fucking people are saying\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was necessary,\u201d he said. \u201cIt felt right afterward. I vibed with them and they were funny. Fuck, they were funny fucking people. I don\u2019t know what to tell you. I had a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claimed he was one of the comedians who had \u201cthe most amount of shit\u201d for appearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these sanctimonious cunts out there \u2026 who don\u2019t really sincerely give a shit,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you actually give a fuck about those people and how they\u2019re living over there, there\u2019s gonna have to be these types of things to pull them in. And I will tell you, the Cheesecake Factory in Riyadh, it\u2019s incredible. It\u2019s right next to Pizza Hut and KFC, and if you want a pair of Timberlands, it\u2019s across the street next to the Marriott, catty-corner to the fucking Hilton.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burr also said that the US was \u201cmoving towards\u201d Saudi Arabia<\/a> with Ice \u201cfucking grabbing moms and dads and sticking them in a van for making illegally made fucking tacos\u201d which he called \u201cfucking insane\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since appearing, the lesbian comic Jessica Kirson has expressed<\/a> \u201csincere regret\u201d but said she was there to \u201chelp LGBTQ+ people in Saudi Arabia feel seen and valued\u201d. Those in the community have zero legal protections in the country and could face execution.<\/p>\n

Burr called out the \u201chardcore psycho gays\u201d for the backlash she faced.<\/p>\n

This week also saw Ansari, who is currently promoting his directorial debut Good Fortune, asked about the event by Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I put a lot of thought into,\u201d he said. \u201cI have an aunt that lived there for a while and I talked to her about this and she said there\u2019s people over there that don\u2019t agree with the stuff that the government\u2019s doing and to ascribe the worst behaviour of the government on to those people is not fair just like there\u2019s people in America who don\u2019t agree with the things the government is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that he thought the festival would help to push \u201cthings to be more open and to push a dialogue\u201d. But he \u201cshares the concerns\u201d and has said that part of his fee is going towards organisations that support free press and human rights in the region.<\/p>\n

Louis CK also addressed<\/a> the backlash, calling the festival \u201ca good opportunity\u201d and saying \u201ccomedy is a great way to get in and start talking\u201d.<\/p>\n

Members of the Human Rights Watch had tried<\/a> to meet with the comedians on the lineup before the event but had no response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seventh anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s brutal murder is no laughing matter, and comedians receiving hefty sums from Saudi authorities shouldn\u2019t be silent on prohibited topics in Saudi like human rights or free speech,\u201d said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher. \u201cEveryone performing in Riyadh should use this high-profile opportunity to call for the release of detained Saudi activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

In August, the Human Rights Watch stated<\/a> that Saudi authorities had executed at least 241 people in 2025 and if this number continued at the same rate, it would exceed all prior yearly records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Burr has defended his appearance at the controversial Riyadh comedy festival, calling his critics \u201csanctimonious cunts\u201d. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-198529","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\/198529","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=198529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}