Here's How Comedians Are Rationalizing Taking a Paycheck from Saudi Arabia

Given the apparent tension between Saudi Arabia’s notorious human rights abuses and our current crop of A-list comedians’ professed belief in their art form as the vanguard of liberty, I’ve been keeping track of what comics booked on the Riyadh Comedy Festival have been saying about it. What I have gleaned—and this may shock you—is that they are greedy amoral narcissists who don’t believe in anything, let alone what they claim to believe, and who sneer at the very idea of maintaining any sort of personal value system. 

Andrew Schulz’s Evolving Positions on Saudi Arabia

Portrait of a mercenary.

HumorismSeth Simons

I would like to share some recent commentary on the subject with you today, arranged from most sociopathic (Jim Jefferies, Tim Dillon) to least sociopathic but still pretty sociopathic (Chris Distefano, Mark Normand). Let’s start with Jefferies’ appearance on the latest episode of Theo Von’s podcast, released earlier today:

Jefferies: I'm going to this thing in Saudi Arabia. I've been given a little bit of grief online, nothing too much.

Von: About going to Saudi Arabia?

Jefferies: Yeah. A few people have gotten into the comics who are going, and the list is big. It's Louis C.K., me, Bill Burr, Fluffy's going, Whitney Cummings.

Von: Oh, is a big festival going? I didn't even get invited.

Jefferies: It's called the Riyadh Comedy Festival, and here we go, Andrew Schulz, Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Jim Jefferies, Jimmy Carr, Jo Koy, Kevin Hart, you know?

Von: Wow.

Jefferies: We got people.

Von: Great lineup, too. Jessica Kirson, Nimesh Patel. Wow.

Jefferies: It's as good a lineup I've seen at any comedy festival ever.

Von: Unbelievable.

Jefferies: Now people have been going, "Oh, how dare you go over there after, oh, they killed a reporter." That was the big one. There's been a reporter who they killed. You don't think our governments fucking bump people? Oh, I think Jeffrey Epstein was fucking bumped off. You know what I mean?

Von: Oh, I'm sure that every place, we've damaged a lot of places.

Jefferies: Yeah, yeah. One reporter was killed by the government. Unfortunate, but not a fucking hill that I'm gonna die on. And I don't know the ins and outs of their government. So then they get into the LIV Golf, right? All the golfers go up to Saudi Arabia for a king's ransom amount of money. And everyone's like, "How dare they after how they treat their people and all this type of stuff." And the people are like, all right. Then you've got Cristiano Ronaldo goes over and plays there is being paid an—he gets an extra hundred, 200 grand every time he kicks a goal as a bonus. 50 grand for an assist.

Von: He has like an SPF fee, I heard. Even just putting it on before the games, they pay him extra to do that. That's crazy. [Ed. note: I cannot find anything substantiating this.]

Jefferies: So he's living there. He's engaged to his missus, but they've never gotten married, right? He's the first person in Saudi Arabia who's allowed to live with a woman who he's not married to. They've made—

Von: An exception.

Jefferies: They've gone, "All right, all right. For Ronaldo, okay."

Von: He can do it. They have a lot of strong rules over there.

Jefferies: So you can be angry at how they treat their people, how they treat the reporter. You can be angry at the golfers, you can be angry at things. But what better than—basically we are freedom-of-speech machines being sent over there. They have not at one stage asked to see our material. They haven't asked. In some countries in Asia, I've been asked for transcripts of what I'm gonna say.

Von: Oh, yeah.

Jefferies: Right? They haven't asked what we're going to do. And let's be fair, they have picked some fucking edgy ass comedians.

Von: Some seriously edgy ones.

Jefferies: Yeah, yeah.

Von: Some of the greats.

Jefferies: They've picked some edgy comedians.

Von: Very smart, too.

Jefferies: So if you don't agree with how—

Von: Bill Burr will be there, Schulz.

Jefferies: If you don't agree with how they run their place, isn't this a step in the right direction, right?

Von: A hundred percent. Bringing free speech over.

Jefferies: Yeah, yeah. Isn't this a sign that they're trying to do something different with themselves?

Von: Yeah.

Jefferies: This would've been—the highest ranks of government would've gone, "All right, we're bringing out 30 fucking comedians who are allowed to say whatever the fuck they want. Who's up for this?" This is a positive thing.

Von: I agree. Well, here's the thing that I don't understand, too. It's like to live in a country where we're fortunate enough to have the freedom of speech, right?

Jefferies: Yeah.

Von: And to say things we want, and then to judge other places. Like I get judging them. But their rules, that's what makes their culture, right? And it's like, yes, we may not agree with some of them, and some of them we may deem as wrong and some of them may be morally wrong or religiously wrong. But for that country, that's what's going on, right? Now some of them I get. It's like, that's wrong, that's fucked up. But sometimes you're just attacking kind of the culture of a place, right?

Jefferies: Yes.

Von: So it's like-

Jefferies: And us isolating them teaches us nothing and teaches them nothing.

Von: Yeah. It also makes look like this loud know-it-all the time.

Jefferies: Yeah.

Von: That's the thing I don't like, you know? Go live there for a few years, see how it is, you know? I mean, of course—

Jefferies: Well, I'm not gonna live there.

Von: Yeah, no.

Jefferies: I don't want to put that out there. I'm happy here.

You hear that? It's actually to the credit of the Saudi royal family to invite comedians to bring free speech to their country, which, by the way, they're within their rights to govern as they please.

"I don't agree with the Saudi Arabian stance on homosexuality or women's rights or whatever, but I don't agree with a lot of what's going on."

Now let’s hear from Tim Dillon, in a Patreon episode released today with Australian comic James McCann. Dillon offers much the same rationalization we’ll see from other comics—basically, that everyone is bad so there’s nothing especially wrong with taking money from Saudi Arabia—but what makes the exchange interesting is that McCann pushes back on his reasoning, forcing Dillon to really spell out what levels of repression he’s okay with: 

Dillon: Well, this is the way I feel. Right? And my agent called me, goes, "I don't know if we should do this. I don't know if we should—this is an endorsement of Saudi Arabia." Well, I said, "well, okay, but let's just be frank. I'm living in a country right now that is endorsing another country's behavior that I don't agree with. I mean. Am I—I mean—

McCann: You can't get behind the reforms in Samoa at the moment?

Dillon: Yes, it's the Samoan reforms. But so here's my thing—

McCann: I think you can have an argument as a gay man to go there that you're normalizing not hacking people up. 

Dillon: Well, I don't even know if I'm doing that. What I'm saying is that—

McCann: It's the Queen going to South Africa.

Dillon: —if my tax dollars in the country that I live are going to be sent to another country to starve children. For anyone to then say, "You should refuse a gig in Saudi Arabia on a moral ground" is fucking insane. Is insane.

McCann: Now, hold on. You don't have the moral culpability of—not every citizen of America is morally culpable for the decisions its government makes.

Dillon: Well, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying—

McCann: But if you're getting an enormous paycheck. You are culpable. 

Dillon: Well, the people that are telling me that the morality of the Saudi government are attending fundraisers—the people that are calling me and going, "I wonder if this is a good look or not," are attending fundraisers for the IDF. And people that I know have donated money—and by the way, God bless, whatever—but the same people that are donating money to a country that is starving children are then saying maybe performing in Saudi is not a good look. I find that to be at the very least curious and a little funny. Am I completely wrong? 

McCann: I mean the Sauds are also on the side though of the Israeli government at this point, no?

Dillon: Right. Is the Tel Aviv Comedy Festival offering any money? I don't know, by the way. 

McCann: I have been trying to get a show—

Dillon: Is there a Tel Aviv Comedy—and are they offering large sums of money to go over there? 

McCann: I think a difference is with Israel, that is ostensibly a free country.

Dillon: I feel like they're not offering much money. 

McCann: They have elections. They can— 

Dillon: They haven't had one in a very long time. [Ed. note: Israel held its last legislative election in 2022, though the Humorism newsletter agrees with Dillon’s broader point that as an apartheid state conducting a genocide, Israel is hardly a free country.]

McCann: It's probably time. It's time. 

Dillon: By the way, if we're gonna say that they're a free country and a democracy, they've not had an election in a very long time and they're behaving like a rogue state.

McCann: They're at war. They'd like to continue being at war until their objectives are met.

Dillon: What war? What war are they in? By the way, what war are they in? Have you seen the photos of Gaza? What wars? Who's the war with? The children trying to get grain whose heads that are being blown off? What's the war?

McCann: I think blowing up the church was a bit of a turning point. 

Dillon: Is that the war, the blowing up of the church? I'm trying to think about what the war is two years in.

McCann: I mean, look, it's nutty, but I would still like to do a show in Israel because I think I could sway people. 

Dillon: Yes. Well, that's what I'm doing in Saudi Arabia. I'm swaying.

McCann: But they don't have an election coming up. Never.

Dillon: Well, by the way, you know before they invited me to this, you know, the Saudi people were sitting in a room and they were like, "I don't know, he's gay." And then they started playing clips of me and Candace Owens and a bunch of people started nodding their heads and they were like, "listen." I'm not concerned about my safety. My concern is if I'll come home or if I'll choose to stay. But I understand what you mean. Listen, I don't agree with the Saudi Arabian stance on homosexuality or women's rights or whatever, but I don't agree with a lot of what's going on. 

McCann: I think that's big of you. I mean they're a problematic—the journalist thing was very, very poor form, I think to kill a journalist in a normal roundabout Eastern European way. People kill journalists all the time—in this country, I think there are some journalists who aren't alive anymore. 

Dillon: Michael Hastings is one of them. And I can't say for sure—I can't say for sure who—

McCann: But it's the limbs in the suitcase. That's what I think. That's the only thing I know that I am upset by, that the Sauds—it's a repressive government. They're trying to westernize.

Dillon: Well, I don't love, you know, listen.  Well, listen, the torture in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, I don't love that, but that is where I'll be staying because it is the finest hotel. I will not be standing where they put the comics. 

McCann: You want to get tortured and killed in the Holiday Inn?

Dillon: I am not staying where they put the comedians up. I will be staying in the Ritz-Carlton. 

"Other people are amoral hypocrites, therefore it is okay for me to be an amoral hypocrite." What a wonderful, versatile principle!

"All entertainment money is fucking blood money."

Now let’s turn to a few segments featuring Chris Distefano, who’s discussed the festival on the podcast 2 Bears 1 Cave—where he and Stavros Halkias are sitting in for Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer—and the podcast History Hyenas, which he hosts with Yannas Pappas. We’ll take these in chronological order, because there’s an interesting change in his narrative over just a few weeks. Here’s an exchange released on July 21st: 

Distefano: Are you going to Saudi Arabia? Are you going to do that gig?

Halkias: I can't do it, man.

Distefano: Can't do it. Can't take the Saudi money.

Halkias: Can't do it, man.

Distefano: I get it.

Halkias: I can't.

Distefano: I didn't want to do it either. I was contemplating. I was like, "Maybe not." And then Jasmin was like, "Well, we're getting married. We got the house. Who knows, we'll probably sell it again." I was like, "I can't do it." And then she was like, "You're gonna take that fucking money."

Halkias: Yeah.

Distefano: And I was like, "Okay."

Halkias: You're gonna have a maid that doesn't have access to her passport—

Distefano: Yeah.

Halkias: —Whether you like it or not. A Filipino woman who's trapped in the desert. Can never see her family again.

Distefano: Well, what's good about a gig like that, for me personally, is this is one where— it's not even like—there's no question, Jasmin can't come. 

Halkias: Yes. There's no more endangered species than a mouthy Puerto Rican woman in Saudi Arabia. 

Distefano: It wasn't even a question. Because normally when I go overseas—it's like, "Jas," it's like, "if you do come, just know you're coming back headless."

Halkias: Yeah. That's fucking hilarious.

Distefano: Yeah, I know, dude.

Halkias: Wow. Saudi Arabia is spooky to me.

Distefano: Sam Morril is going.

Halkias: I know.

Distefano: The Jews.

Halkias: I've talked about it.

Distefano: Yeah.

Halkias: We've talked about it.

Distefano: He was like, "Dude, if shit goes down over there, you got my back?" I was like, "I'm gonna grab a stone too."

Halkias: Yeah.

Distefano: I'm gonna join the mob and get out of here. I gotta get home. I was like, I can't risk this.

Halkias: Yeah, it's a setup. What are you talking about, dude? It's like, Sam, Ari—you're there to throw them off the scent.

Distefano: Yeah, yeah. All of a sudden I start yelling "Shoshanna!"

Halkias: Damn, dude. I mean, whatever. I mean, all entertainment money is fucking blood money—

Distefano: Blood money, yeah.

Halkias:—one way or the other anyway.

Distefano: I think too, man, with the world the way it is, it's like, that's how I feel. It's like you go down these rabbit holes and then you're like—even like, I was giving money to the green initiatives and then something pops up where it's like, this is a scam. You're giving money—and then you'll try to do the work to look into is it or is it not? And then you just get exhausted and you're like, dude, I don't know anymore at all.

You’ll note that Distefano said he didn’t want to take the gig, but his wife told him to. On an episode of History Hyenas released last week, featuring guest Joe DeRosa, he offered a somewhat contradictory take: that his family was upset with him for taking it. He also struggled mightily to pronounce the word “Riyadh,” even when it was on a screen right in front of him, somehow ending up with “Rih-dee-yuh”:

Distefano: In two months I got a show in Saudi Arabia, so I don't want any clips to pop up at the airport.

DeRosa: Wait, do you really?

Distefano: Swear to God.

DeRosa: What? Why?

Distefano: They're doing a big comedy festival there.

DeRosa: Oh God, dude, that sounds awful. That sounds like a terrible idea.

Distefano: You think?

DeRosa: Yes.

Distefano: In Saudi Arabia? But I thought that was like the Americanized one.

DeRosa: I mean...

Distefano: You wouldn't go?

DeRosa: Dude. I mean—

Distefano: You wouldn't?

DeRosa: That's like saying—

Pappas: Just go and bomb. Just don't say anything. 

Distefano: That's the thing. 

Pappas: There's so many things you can't say. 

Distefano: Right. Can't I just—I could just go talk about Puerto Ricans, right? [Ed. note: Distefano’s wife is Puerto Rican, which he uses as license to say all sorts of things about Puerto Ricans in his standup.]

DeRosa: Yeah, no.

Distefano: You wouldn't do it? You know the way you talk—for the right number, you wouldn't do it?

DeRosa: Dude, that's like saying... Dude, I don't know. That's like going through... To me, that's like you know there's a nice restaurant, but you gotta walk through a real bad neighborhood to get there. I don't know.

Distefano: You would not feel comfortable being over there?

DeRosa: I would not feel comfortable going to that region of the world personally. 

Distefano: Right now. 

DeRosa: No.

Distefano: But they say Saudi Arabia is very, very safe.

DeRosa: But what do you cross through to get to Saudi Arabia?

Distefano: Yeah. You could just get a plane shot out of the sky.

DeRosa: I don't know, man. It just seems, why test it? 

Distefano: My family is pretty upset that I said yes.

DeRosa: Well, there's a reason. 

Pappas: You're going to a country that looks good on the surface, but there's a lot of horrible things happening in that country to make it look a certain way on the surface.

Distefano: Right, right, right.

Pappas: But also, this is how you succeed there. Do you know the jokes you do in your group chat about Jews?

Distefano: Yes.

Pappas: Tell those, and you'll be fine.

Distefano: Right.

DeRosa: They're not gonna know what you're talking about with Puerto Rican shit.

Distefano: Well, I said to my agent, I was like, "I'm gonna bomb bad.” They were like, “they want American comedy over there. They have a base of 5,000 US troops."

DeRosa: Oh, it's a troop show? 

Distefano: No, it's not the troop show. It's the Riya—Riyadh—Ridiyah? What's the cap— R-I—

DeRosa: I don't fucking know. 

Distefano: Ridiyah, Saudi Arabia. It's a huge—Kevin Hart's going, Tom Segura, me, Sam, Tim Dillon.

Pappas: Is Tim going? Tim's going?

Distefano: Ridiyah Comedy Festival.

DeRosa: I guess if all those guys are going, that's a good gauge of it'll be okay.

That was released on August 14th. In an episode of 2 Bears 1 Cave released on the 18th, Distefano said he was questioning whether he should do the festival. Fortunately, Halkias was there to reassure him (again) that all showbiz money is blood money. 

Distefano: I love that I have morals and I'm standing up for myself here, but then I'll go to Saudi Arabia and make—

Halkias: Yeah, you're a piece of shit for that.

Distefano: Dude, I'm wavering if I should not go.

Halkias: No, you're going. You know you're going.

Distefano: Just go, right? Segura told me to go.

Halkias: I wouldn't go. Well, there you go. And he's giving us this podcast.

Distefano: Yeah, I know. 

Halkias: Look, we don't have to keep talking about it, I just think there's certain—

Distefano: Did we talk about it last week?

Halkias: I think we've talked about it before.

Distefano: Oh, all right. 

Halkias: I think so. I think so. I mean, but at the same time, almost no entertainment money comes from a good place.

Distefano: No.

Halkias: But, you know.

Distefano: It's like, do you want to take it from them or do you want to take it from someone who's probably sexually assaulted millions of people?

Halkias: Millions?

Distefano: Yeah, I don't know who I'm even talking about.

Halkias: Millions is crazy. But yes, it is an industry propped up by sex criminals—

Distefano: Sure, and we're part of it.

Halkias: —and war criminals, and you know.

Distefano: We're in there, we're in it. We're in it all, we're in it all.

Halkias: We certainly are. I mean, all of society really is, if we really get back to it.

There you have it! All society is propped up by rapists and war criminals, so there’s no point in trying not to associate with or profit from or otherwise whitewash great acts of evil by powerful people or states. This is especially rich coming from Halkias, who, like Dillon, became successful thanks to the advent of membership platforms that allow fans to pay comedians directly, and who clearly decided he couldn't stomach the Saudi gig. How disappointing, then, that he cannot find it in himself to encourage his peers to draw the same line.

"I'm going in and out. Just to get that paycheck."

Now that we’ve sorted out that nothing matters, let’s conclude with a segment of We Might Be Drunk with Mark Normand, Sam Morril, and guest Jessica Kirson, who remarkably don’t even seem to consider the ethical implications of the festival; in fact, they talk about it like it’s a wonderful field trip. This episode was released on August 3rd, by which point Kirson had already been announced as a headliner; since she doesn’t seem aware of the festival during the discussion, I assume it was recorded a few weeks earlier. 

Morril: We did get an offer to play—

Normand: I think I'm gonna go.

Morril: You're gonna go?

Normand: Well, I'm only doing two days.

Kirson: Where?

Normand: I'm going in and out.

Morril: Saudi Arabia.

Normand: Just to get that paycheck.

Kirson: I would do that.

Morril: Yeah.

Kirson: Yeah, why not?

Normand: I'm doing it, two days.

Kirson: Do you ever go to Abu Dhabi?

Normand: No.

Morril: No.

Kirson: I would love to go there and do stand-up.

Normand: I would like to go to that too.

Kirson: I've heard it's great.

Normand: Are you guys nervous to go there?

Kirson: Mm-hmm.

Normand: Yeah.

Kirson: But those kind of places—

Morril: I mean, you got two, I just got one. You got three.

Kirson: Three kids?

Morril: No. Gay, woman, and Jew.

Kirson: Oh.

Normand: Oh, yeah.

Morril: I just got Jew.

Kirson: I wouldn't do gay material there at all.

Morril: Yeah.

Normand: Weird.

Kirson: No.

Normand: Really?

Kirson: And I wouldn't because I'm Jewish—

Morril: I'm like everything they hate, I'm like a drunk Jew.

Normand: Oh yeah, eats meat. Or pork.

Morril: Yeah.

Kirson: A drunk Jew.

Morril: Yeah.

Kirson: Yeah.

Morril: They don't like that.

Normand: No, they don't. Bad language, you're done.

Morril: Yeah.

Kirson: I think you have to be clean.

Morril: We could be clean, we've done enough late night sets, right?

Kirson: Yeah, yeah.

Morril: I mean, our version of clean, I guess.

Normand: I'm just gonna go up and draw Mohammed, that's my big closer. I can't wait.

Morril: They see this, they're like "Kidnap him. Kidnap him." 

Kirson: They have comedy scenes in these places though.

Normand: They really do. They really do.

Kirson: They do.

Morril: No, I was talking to a friend he goes, "you're fine there, it's like basically America."

Normand: Oh, all right, great.

Morril: I was like, basically? I don't know if it's basically.

Normand: Yeah.

Kirson: Supposedly—I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but it would be for you guys—you get treated like gold. Like it's five star—crazy treatment, hotels and car service, and food. And they really take care of you.

Normand: Yeah, about time.

Morril: But no alcohol or chicks.

Normand: Whoa.

Kirson: No one drinks in, I guess—

Morril: Yeah.

Kirson: Oh my god.

Normand: Weird.

Kirson: Isn't that amazing? It's so weird that you're brought up in a culture where no one—

Normand: I know, it's crazy. I'm impressed that they can pull that off.

Kirson: Me too. Especially if they had a bad childhood.

Normand: If you go to YouTube and like, "Indian comedian" and then it goes over to "Middle East comedian," it's booming.

Kirson: I know, it is.

Normand: Comedy is huge over there in that part of the world, so. But we started it.

Morril: I'm thinking, Hey, I hope we go, it'd be great if we went on the same flight dude, that'd be perfect.

Normand: Let's do it.

Morril: Let's figure it out.

Obviously this is all extremely bad and damning in its own right, but it also makes one wonder whether there is any level of state-sanctioned horror these comedians will not metabolize for the right price. I hope we never have to find out.