{"id":197064,"date":"2025-10-02T11:56:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/197064\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T11:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:56:06","slug":"bill-burr-details-riyadh-comedy-fest-performance-amid-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/197064\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Burr Details Riyadh Comedy Fest Performance Amid Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBill Burr<\/a> took to his Monday Morning Podcast this week to talk about his performance at Riyadh Comedy Festival\u00a0in the capital of Saudi Arabia. His latest episode arrived amid backlash from his fellow comedians for participating in an event that\u00a0Human Rights Watch said<\/a>\u00a0is being used to deflect attention from the country\u2019s \u201cbrutal repression of free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBurr said that while he was initially \u201cfucking nervous,\u201d he was soon astonished by the similarities to Western culture. \u201cI think I\u2019m going to land and everybody\u2019s going to be screaming, \u2018Death to America\u2019, and they\u2019re going to have like fucking machetes and want to like chop my head off, right?\u201d Burr said. \u201cBecause this is what I\u2019ve been fed about that part of the world.\u201d However, after landing, Burr said he was surprised by both the restaurants and eagerness of the audience of have a good time. \u201cIs that a Starbucks next to a Pizza Hut next to a Burger King next to a McDonald\u2019s? They got a fucking Chili\u2019s over here!\u201d Burr recalled thinking at the time. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had to stop a couple times during the show and say, \u2018I\u2019ll be honest with you guys, I cannot fucking believe any of you have any idea who I am,\u2019\u201d Burr said. \u201cIt was just this great exchange of energy. They know their reputation. So they were extra friendly.\u201d He added, \u201cThe royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely top three experiences I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Burr continued. \u201cIt was great to experience that part of the world and to be a part of the first comedy festival over there in Saudi Arabia. I think it\u2019s going to lead to a lot of positive things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBurr was among the robust lineup of performers at the festival and was joined by the likes of\u00a0Dave Chappelle<\/a>, Kevin Hart,\u00a0Aziz Ansari,\u00a0Louis C.K.<\/a>, Pete Davidson, Jo Koy, and Jimmy Carr.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, Atsuko Okatsuka said that she turned down an offer to perform at the Riyadh festival. \u201cThe money is coming straight from the Crown Prince, who actively executes journalists, ppl with nonlethal drug offenses, bloggers, etc without due process,\u201d she wrote in a post. \u201cA lot of the \u2018you can\u2019t say anything anymore!\u2019 Comedians are doing the festival \u2026 they had to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they can make.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tDuring Burr\u2019s podcast, he addressed reports over the initial restrictions on what comedians were allowed to say on stage. \u201cWhen they first went to set it up over there, the rules on what they had about what you could say and what you couldn\u2019t say in Saudi Arabia, the people around the festival were like \u2026. \u2018If this is all you can talk about and you want some good comedians, this isn\u2019t going to work,’\u201d said Burr, who didn\u2019t specify which organizers were involved in the back and forth. \u201cAnd to their credit, they said, \u2018All right, what do we got to do?\u2019 And they just negotiated it all the way down to \u2026 a couple things, which was, basically: don\u2019t make fun of the Royals [and] religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few days after Okatsuka\u2019s post, David Cross<\/a>\u00a0published\u00a0a statement denouncing some of his \u201cHEROES\u201d<\/a> for participating in the festival. Cross called out \u201cDave and Louie and Bill, and Jim,\u201d adding, \u201cClearly 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Burr took to his Monday Morning Podcast this week to talk about his performance at Riyadh Comedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[107525,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-197064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bill-burr","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}