Riyadh Comedy Festival Headliners Agree: It Was Fine to Headline the Riyadh Comedy Festival

Andrew Schulz and his minions just released a new episode of their podcast addressing criticism of the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Schulz also released a 10-minute mashup of his jokes at the festival, which, like his past sets in the Middle East, consisted largely of racist jokes about his audience. (“That’s what Saudis do, right? Anybody sometime someone's acting a little r—ded, they're like, 'Oh, he's just from Kuwait, don't bother him please…' Oh, he's really r—ded? 'Oman, send him back to Oman.’”) It also included a paean to Turki Al-Sheikh, Saudi royal adviser and chairman of the kingdom’s General Entertainment Authority, who produced the festival. Here is the section of Al-Sheikh’s Wikipedia page titled “Human rights abuses”: 

Alalshikh has been accused of severe human rights violations in his role as a "key on-the-ground operator" in Mohammed bin Salman's rise to power. In April 2024, a special report in The Athletic reported that he orchestrated a campaign of repression, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and torture. According to multiple sources, those detained for social media posts criticizing Alalshikh were imprisoned in an area of al-Ha'ir prison which detainees called the "Tutu Wing", referencing his nickname.

Alalshikh wrote and publicly circulated a song that proclaimed the innocence of Saud al-Qahtani, who had been implicated the murder of Jamal Khashoggi on behalf of Mohammed bin Salman.

In another case, Egyptian singer Amal Maher reportedly filed a police report accusing Alalshikh of assault in 2018. After receiving threats, she disappeared from public view for over two years and cryptically announced she had retired from music. No charges were ever brought against Alalshikh.

And here are Schulz’s comments:

I like that Turki guy. I like Turki. He puts his mind to something, it’s happening. He’s like, “I’m gonna get WWE,” it’s happening. “I’m gonna get UFC,” it’s happening. “I’m gonna get boxing,” it’s happening. It’s powerful. He can literally make the impossible happen. Last Saudi that could do that was Bin Laden, so. We just gotta make sure Turki, please stick to sports. Stick to sports. 

I invite you to keep those words of praise in mind as you read the Flagrant crew’s responses to their critics, which amounts to “we were performing for our fans, not the government, and it’s good that the government paid us, because our fans got cheap tickets.”

“I will go perform for my fans wherever they are on the whole fucking planet.”

Like Whitney Cummings, who defended her involvement in the festival in the latest episode of her own podcast, Schulz & Co. basically imply that their critics are racist. Unlike Cummings and other comedians who have issued similar statements, they also trash their peers who tried to reckon with the moral questions involved in the festival: 

Schulz: Shout out to Flagrant, bro. We got the best fans in the world. Our fans didn't give a flying fuck that we went to Saudi. All these other podcasts, all these comedians, crumbling, trembling. I love seeing these pussy motherfuckers going on their little shows and saying shit like, "But America is bad too." Shut up, dork! All these comedians, terrified of their own audience. You can go perform for your fans wherever they are in the world. I will go perform for my fans wherever they are on the whole fucking planet. People don't decide where they're born, you idiots. 

Gagnon: Even the Middle Eastern ones, though? 

Schulz: Maybe not them, they're beneath me, but maybe just the white countries. Because that's what they're all saying, right? They're like, "How dare you perform in non-white countries that don't have the exact same rules as us?"  

Singh: Because what they're saying is, you're taking money from the government. 

Schulz: Good. My fans get a discount.  You're welcome. You're welcome. 

Singh: So you'd rather I charge the oppressed people full price? The people you think are oppressed to pay full price. 

Schulz: Yeah. It's just ridiculous. Honestly. You either have fans that have supported you. They also share your clips. They also watch your YouTube specials. They watch your Netflix specials. They do everything to give you the life of your dreams. That's why I'm super grateful. So wherever the fuck they are in the world, I will go perform for them. I went to fucking Moscow. I went to Singapore. You can't chew bubblegum in Singapore without them being Asian about it. 

Singh: Thailand, if you talk about the emperor, you get thrown in jail.

Schulz: Yeah, but you gotta do that shit. That's the fun part. So yeah, this whole backlash, it's like you don't need to explain it by the bad things America has done. I see all these people doing his mental gymnastics because they're like trying to justify. You have to justify shit. Do you have fans there? Go perform for them. No fans around the world are beneath you performing for them, for things out of their control. America is unique. We are the best. We have specific rules that are different than everywhere else. There's no free speech in Canada. There's no free speech in fucking England. They're locking up comedians over there. There are different levels to this for sure. Obviously I'm not ignorant to that. But the reality is there are people there that did not decide to be born there. You don't get to decide where you're fucking born. You also don't get to decide the rules of your government when there is a monarchy or a dictatorship. So you don't punish those people for things completely out of their control when they've helped you live your fucking dreams. 

“We've never been the virtue-signaling type.”

Interestingly, Akaash Singh went so far to argue that he and his cohosts have never fashioned themselves as artists who speak truth to power:

Singh: Buddy, I saw so many liberal, white comics talking shit on us. First of all, we've never been the "Truth to power" guys. When Indian comics are getting thrown in jail, did y'all say a fucking word? Because I did.

Schulz: No, of course not.

[…]

Schulz: Well, that's the reason why we don't have any pushback, barely any pushback, is because we've never been the virtue-signaling type. We've never been the ones out here, like—there are people that are getting pushback, and based on some shit that they had said in the past, I kind of get it. I'll be honest, I kind of get it. Like Burr is getting all this pushback, and it's the first time I've seen his career, him not aware of why it's happening. I saw him on Conan.

Again, it's a clip, so I don't want to take clips out of context, but he is like, "All these people, like sanctimonious cunts." And it's like, "Bro, you did say that Beyonce sold out for blood money, for going to an oil state. And then you went to an oil state." Now, the criticism for that comes from other things. They're just using this as a tool of leverage against him, because they're upset at him for other things. But they're not wrong that he is hypocritical to call Beyonce one thing, and then you go do the same thing.

No comment on Schulz’s own history of criticizing the Saudis, of course. 

“Marc Maron, come on this pod… I’ll chop you up like you Jamal Khashoggi.”

Elsewhere, they responded colorfully to Marc Maron’s criticism of Riyadh headliners, launching into a broader critique of comedians distancing themselves from Joe Rogan: 

Schulz: Any discussions about the fest, Saudi fest?

Singh: Nah. Marc Maron, you ain't shit. That's about it.

Media: Jesus Christ.

Singh: I'm tired of this motherfucker.

Schulz: He ain't shit. And not just him, a lot of these comedians ain't shit. I've been seeing a lot of comedians trying to separate themselves from Austin lately. Have you seen this?

Singh: Yeah, of course.

Schulz: I've seen a lot of these comedians really trying to create distance from Austin, what's happening in Austin. A lot of comedians that used Joe and his millions of followers to boost their careers, that went on there to promote their specials, that performed at the club, really used Joe's power and influence that he was very generous to give them. And all of a sudden there's a little internet backlash post-election and they're trying to blame the manosphere for the election. Not the fact that they ran a fucking dead guy and a woman that can't talk. No, it's true. And now I see these comics kind of vocally talking shit, that they would talk all this shit by the way, behind closed doors because it's what comics do, but real rat weasel shit. Because you let this guy enrich you, you used him for his followers and now you see a situation where they're getting backlash and instead you pile on for self-salvation, not get your boys back and refute some of the rumors that exist on the internet.

There's a lot of weasels in this business and it's good. I like to see it. I want everybody to know because they're going to get canceled for some shit in the future. They're going to not live up to the purity test. And Joe's the type of guy that he would've had your back. He would've had you on the biggest platform in the world to explain yourself. He would've given you that opportunity. But now you're showing who you really are. So enjoy the bed you made.

He went on like this for a while, but the group eventually wound their way back to Maron with a hilarious joke about how they want to murder him like Saudi Arabia murdered that pesky little journalist:

Singh: I'm done. Marc Maron, come on this pod. Let me chop you up. 

Schulz: You asked. You asked him to come on, but he would never come on.

Singh: No, I asked him nicely. Now come on. I'll chop you up like you Jamal Khashoggi. 

Schulz: Come to the embassy. Come to the embassy, Marc. Come to the embassy.

Singh: Schulz can sit out if you're intimidated by it. Don't worry. I got you. I know you're probably not used to talking to people of color at your shows, but just come talk to one and then we'll handle it.

Ha! Funny.

“See how nice men will treat women when we can assume you're hot?”

Like their friend Chris Distefano, the Flagrant crew attempted to make the case that women in Saudi Arabia actually have it pretty good. Unfortunately, they did this by straightforwardly (and enthusiastically) describing a system that treats women as second-class. Here they are talking about women who wear the hijab, whom they describe as “ninjas”:

Schulz: Mark was talking to a comic that was a ninja, and she had a really interesting perspective. Can you share what she was saying? 

Gagnon: She was like, "I didn't wear it growing up, I thought I was going to be one of the girls that would just keep my hair out. Lived in Jeddah, very progressive. And then I went to college, wore it in college, and then I was treated so well that I just decided to wear it all the time. She was like, I go to the grocery store, people let me skip in line. They accommodate me. People help me with stuff." She's like, "I get treated like a princess." 

Singh: It's nice to get treated inferior. Poor girl. She's exhausted. You got let to the front of the line. Sexism.

Gagnon: She's like, she's exalted, dude. They call her Sheikha. Literally, princess, like sheikh-ah. She's like, "yeah, I get treated so well."

Schulz: See how nice men will treat women when we can assume you're hot? If we see you're ugly, then of course you're not getting good treatment. But if you got niqab on, we're like, oh, she hiding something, bro. You know when a  girl got a sweatshirt on and you can could see some titty underneath, but you don't know? That's the niqab, for your face. 

“If you do four shows in America, you'll make the same amount of money.”

As I argued in my Guardian piece, the impressive-looking fees comedians received for the festival were ultimately the equivalent of a few shows here at home. Schulz confirmed my analysis in a section explaining that, actually, he didn’t do it for the money:

Schulz: Lemme also dispel some shit about the money. People assume it's like [Cristiano] Ronaldo bags. We're clowns at the end of the day. We're not getting no fucking Ronaldo money. The reality is the money, and I can't speak for the medium tier, maybe the lower tier comedians on the festival. I don't know what they're making every weekend, and I don't know what they got at the festival. But the top tier got the same amount, outside of Chappelle, but the top tier got the same amount. And if you're doing arenas in America, it takes you four days to do one show in Saudi. You have to fly for a whole day. You fly back for a whole day. Maybe you want to get acclimated and know the culture. So bare minimum, it's three days, but probably four. If you do four shows in America, you'll make the same amount of money if you're at the top tier. So you're not doing it for the money. 

Singh: Oh, what happened to four, I thought you'd do 40 shows in America? I thought it was 40 shows. [Ed. note: he’s referring to Nimesh Patel here.]

Schulz: Well, that's a different tier. Different tier comedian. There's a lot of Funny Bones on that lineup. 

Gagnon: Not that there's anything wrong with them. I'll be there soon. I'll be at the Funny Bone. 

Schulz: That was the dumbest shit, dude. That was the dumbest shit. People like, when Nimesh agreed and then tried to walk it back. "Then I really thought about it, it had nothing to do with the internet backlash." Shut the fuck up. You were worried about getting censored by your own audience. And what is the point? It's like you talk about the censorship of the people over there. You're getting censored at home. You can't have an opinion that's yours. You can't perform for your fans. 

Singh: That's a valid point. 

Schulz: There are people there who want to see you, that like your material, but your own fans are censoring you. So you’re like, “I can’t perform over there because of the censorship.”

Note the perversity of this argument: that when your fans—whom he previously characterized as the people who give comedians the ability to live their dream life—have a problem with what you do or say, they’re censoring you. 

“In terms of people actually caring about this, they don’t.”

Schulz took this logic a little further in a spiel lamenting Jessica Kirson’s apology for doing the festival. In this case, Schulz argues that all those censorious fans don't actually care about the festival and the outrage was completely fake:

Schulz: Any other backlash before we put this shit to bed? Everybody fake caring about it. I will say this though, I feel bad for Jessica Kirson.

Singh: Yeah.

Schulz: I feel bad for Jessica, because Jessica went there. Jessica's a gay woman.

Singh: Jewish.

Schulz: Jewish.

Singh: Monster of a comedian. So funny.

Schulz: Performed hilarious, so fucking funny. Performed, apparently crushed. Standing ovation. And it was edgy, and did her fucking thing. And then, there was a lot of backlash, and a lot—we don't know what is a lot. The internet—

Singh: It all feels hot when you're in it.

Schulz: And what she did, she donated the money that she made to a charity or something like that, which that sucks that she had to do that. You know what I mean? She did something that you could actually look at as super progressive, and is moving things forward in a place, that maybe isn't where we want.

Singh: It 1000% does that.

Schulz: Exactly. Now, and then, she's the one that actually gets punished for it, which sucks. Now what I will say though is—

Media: How'd she get punished?

Schulz: Say it again?

Media: How'd she get punished?

Schulz: She gotta give up the money.

Media: She don't have to.

Schulz: Well, she did give up the money.

Singh: It's good karma. She getting good karma for it.

Media: It's still a good thing. Two good things came about it.

Schulz: Keep that shit, brother. Keep that fucking shit.

Singh: Who did she donate to? That's important, because it's got to be a charity that's worthwhile. Human Rights Campaign.

Schulz: And then apparently the human rights charity refused the money, because it came from Saudi or something like that. It's like, yo, you want to fix it or not? You know what I mean? What are we doing here? Some money's dirty

[...]

Schulz: I will say though, this is like, if there's any—the backlash to this isn't about the country of Saudi Arabia. Yeah, it's attached to it. But I think that the personal accountability we can have is, when we had politicians on the pod, we thrust ourselves into the political discourse. And the political discourse is a zero sum game.

Singh: Yeah. Shit is nasty.

Schulz: It's nasty. It is about power. And when power is involved, it's either good or evil. And any possibility you have, any situation where you can mudsling against your perceived opposition, you take advantage of it. So, us thrusting ourselves into the political conversation, and a lot of these comics being tangentially related to comedy and podcasting, comedy and podcasting kind of became one thing. They saw an opportunity to point out hypocrisy, in this moment right here.

And that's something we could take accountability for. That's something we gotta go, "Okay, if we have politicians on the pod, we have to know that there are people who, their entire identity is politics. And any moment they can to point a finger, and to mudsling, dehumanize, they will take advantage of that." So, I feel like that's on us for that. But in terms of people actually caring about this, they don't. They just care about whatever they already were feeling and were already frustrated by, and just using this.

“You don't want to smell that a little bit? Elon's daughter.”

This last segment doesn’t have anything to do with the Riyadh Comedy Festival but it’s so awful I feel obliged to document it anyhow. During a conversation about the latest inane fake controversy about leftist streamer Hasan Piker, Schulz brings up Piker’s episode with Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk’s estranged daughter. Things get disgustingly sexist and transphobic really, really fast: 

Schulz: His dog is happy, his dog is fed. Does his dog not feed? His dog got to smell the seat after Elon's daughter put that dussy on it. 

Singh: No, he got shocked from going too close to the chair. 

Schulz: No, but she put that dussy on it. 

Singh: And maybe that's why he's going back. Had to get another sniff. 

Schulz: He had Elon's daughter just dropping that dussy all over a seat on the stream, bro. You don't want to smell that a little bit? Elon's daughter. 

Media: Can we pull up Elon's daughter. I've never seen her. 

Schulz: Dripping all over the stream seat. Come on, Akaash. 

Singh: Wait, is this the, which daughter is this? 

Schulz: The hot one? 

Singh: Not the son that transitioned. 

Schulz: Yeah, the daughter. The daughter. It's a daughter. That's why she got the dussy. 

Singh: Okay, I got you now. All right, now I'm with you. Okay. 

Schulz: [Playing a clip] Get it. Get it. Look at that dussy. Oh yeah, dussy dance. Dussy dance, dussy dance, dussy dance.

“It’s not that he cares so much that he wants everyone to do the right thing… He's upset that all these people are getting attention.”

If you’ve made it this far, then I’ll leave you with something slightly different. In an episode with (alleged rapist) Bryan Callen released today, Joe Rogan rants about Marc Maron’s criticism of the Riyadh Comedy Festival headliners, arguing that he’s just jealous they’re getting attention. Then Rogan manages to spin into a rant about gender-affirming care, which he and Callen agree is evil and not actually healthcare at all. 

Rogan: If you're funny, you can get an audience.

Callen: Yeah.

Rogan: And there's Jim Breuer's audience, and then there's Nate Bargatze's audience, and there's Kevin Hart's audience. And you can get an audience. You just have to put your work out there and people resonate with your work. And you might not like these guys. You might say, "This guy sucks" or "That guy sucks," and—

Callen: It's a waste of time.

Rogan: —"I like this guy." No, no, no, it's fine. You're allowed to have personal taste, just like there's personal taste in music that I don't like. But the proof is in the pudding. Do people come to see you? Do you put asses in seats? Do they enjoy the time or is it an angry bomb where you're on stage ranting about other comedians?

Well, that's Maron and he does that all the time. Tim Dillon was just saying he was doing that in LA the other day. He was ranting about other comedians at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which is a legitimate area of criticism if you can make it funny, because you're working for the Saudi government and they've definitely done some stuff that's fucking horrible. But the root of it all is not real. It's not that he cares so much that he wants everyone to do the right thing. That's not it. He's upset that all these people are getting attention. He's upset that all these—it's very childish. But he'll make it look like he's the righteous side, the left, the progressives. He's the voice now and he's gonna fucking—"we got work to do. We gotta get these fascists out." No, but it's about him getting more attention. That's what it ultimately is all about. And that's unfortunate. And I'm not mad at him. And if I saw him and I talked to him, we were cool, I'd give him a hug.

Callen: You're just being honest. You're being just honest.

Rogan: Right, but he wants to pretend that everybody else is bad and mean, and this is the reason why they're successful or that they're hacks.

Callen: Or that the culture is corrupted.

Rogan: But all he says is some dumb shit like, "you should stop making fun of trans people. They can't get healthcare." That's one of the things he said. What are you talking about, "they can't get healthcare"? Healthcare is care that makes you healthy. The law that got passed was stopping chemical castration drugs and surgery for underage children—

Callen: For children.

Rogan: —that are confused.

Callen: Yeah. And you know how many kids are—yeah. Don't get me started on that.

Rogan: And by the way, these things that they call like hormone blockers—

Callen: Cross-sex hormones? You kidding? Puberty blockers?

Rogan: But hold on. Hormone blockers, that's not what they originally were used for. We know that medicine can be used off-label, and the idea of that initially was there was only a hundred different kinds of medicine and you could figure out what could work and you could prescribe it for different things, and off-label uses. The stuff that they're using, they're calling puberty blockers, is the same drugs that they used to give to sex offenders for chemical castration. It's the same drugs.

Callen: It's fucking unbelievable.

Rogan: It's chemical castration drugs.

Callen: It's fucking unbelievable.

Rogan: And you're giving it to children.

Callen: Yeah.

Rogan: And then there's this narrative that it can be reversible. No, it's not.

Callen: No.

Rogan: No. You go through—you're gonna have a micro penis for the rest of your life. You're gonna have fucked up vocal cords. You get your whole body is gonna be—

Callen: Your bone density sucks.

Rogan: Strokes.

Callen: It's fucked up.

Rogan: There's a lot of weird, fucking horrific side effects.

Callen: It's so evil. It's so fucking evil to me.

Rogan: Right. So his straw man is transgender people can—"you should stop talking about it, man. They can't get medical care. They can't get healthcare. Are you happy?"

Callen: Yeah.

Rogan: That has never been the case. It's not healthcare.

Callen: Well, he's saying that, that's what you're saying. That the problem is—

Rogan: He's just trying to get you to limit the amount of things that you're talking about that people wanna hear.

Callen: Right.

Rogan: That's really what he's doing.

Callen: Yeah.

Rogan: It's like a really selfish, self-oriented fucking thing. It's not righteous. That's what's the crazy thing about it. And people are gonna find that out, man. They're gonna dig into you. They're gonna listen to the things you say and the way you behave and the things you've talked about. Saying that the whole reason why everybody voted for Trump is because they wanted to say the word "retard." That's a straw man. If it was a really funny bit, I get it. Okay. It's not that good a bit, but it's a straw man. That's not true. What everybody wanted was they realized there was a crazy thing happening where the border was wide open. And 20 million people got in in four years that weren't supposed to be here.

Not good! Well, see you next time.