{"id":177367,"date":"2025-09-29T09:34:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T09:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/177367\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T09:34:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T09:34:06","slug":"comedians-called-out-for-saudi-arabia-comedy-festival-gig-drama-explained-5-comedians-said-no-1-dropped-from-lineup-atsuko-okutsuka-aziz-ansari-chris-distefano-dave-chappelle-jimmy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/177367\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedians Called Out for Saudi Arabia Comedy Festival Gig: Drama Explained \u2013 5 Comedians Said No, 1 Dropped From Lineup! | Atsuko Okutsuka, Aziz Ansari, Chris DiStefano, Dave Chappelle, jimmy carr, Kevin Hart, Leslie Liao, Longform, Mike Birbiglia, Shane Gillis, Slideshow, Stavros Halkias, Tim Dillon | Just Jared: Celebrity News and Gossip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00ab First<\/a>\u00ab Previous <\/a>Continue \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Tim Dillon<\/a> was scheduled to perform, but was later dropped by the Riyadh festival allegedly due to jokes he made about the country\u2019s alleged use of slave labor.<\/p>\n

On The Tim Dillon Show<\/a>, he said he was \u201cbeing paid a lot of money to not care about what they do in their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more money you pay me, the less I\u2019m going to think about it. This is a really important thing that no one does anymore and I\u2019m recommending it. Look the other way!\u201d he said on the podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in pretending things that are not happening that are. I believe in cognitive dissonance\u2026I will sleep through the screams.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Weeks later, on his show, he recalled his agent telling him: \u201cThey heard what you said about them having slaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I said \u2018I was being positive about it, I was defending them!\u2026I literally said \u2018slaves are probably hard workers and for the most part agreeable\u2019\u2026they didn\u2019t like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI addressed it in a funny way, and they fired me. I certainly wasn\u2019t gonna show up in your country and insult the people that are paying me the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click through to see who is currently participating in the festival\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00ab First<\/a>\u00ab Previous <\/a>Continue \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\tPhotos: Getty\t\t\tPosted to: Atsuko Okutsuka<\/a>, Aziz Ansari<\/a>, Chris DiStefano<\/a>, Dave Chappelle<\/a>, jimmy carr<\/a>, Kevin Hart<\/a>, Leslie Liao<\/a>, Longform<\/a>, Mike Birbiglia<\/a>, Shane Gillis<\/a>, Slideshow<\/a>, Stavros Halkias<\/a>, Tim Dillon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00ab First\u00ab Previous Continue \u00bb Tim Dillon was scheduled to perform, but was later dropped by the Riyadh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-177367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}