By Danny R. Johnson – Entertainment News Editor
New York City has long been recognized as the comedy capital of America. However, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is emerging as a significant contender with its inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival (September 26-October 9, 2025), a state-sponsored initiative showcasing performances by numerous prominent American comedians, including Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, Wayne Brady, Bill Burr, Jessica Kirson, Aziz Ansari, and Pete Davidson.
Listed are the comedians who are scheduled to perform: Riyadh Comedy Festival 2025 – Visit the Saudi Official Website.
Many of the comics attending are taking heat — deservedly so — from other comedians and human rights groups considering the Saudi government’s track record of human rights abuses. Saudi Arabia’s use of what we could call “comedy washing” is an insidious tool to project a misleading image of the country’s incremental efforts to liberalize. These comics should know better than to help launder the country’s reputation in exchange for fat paychecks.
On TikTok and Instagram, verified accounts that appeared to belong to Turki Al-Sheikh, a royal court adviser who has emerged as an influential figure in sports and entertainment as part of Saudi Arabia’s push into the global culture industry, posted videos of Chappelle and Hart.
Many of the comics Saudi Arabia has invited to its festival are considered champions of transgressive speech. Chappelle has decried “cancel culture” and has declared, “The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it.” Louis C.K. insists on the importance of being able to say things that are profane and offensive. Comedians in general require robust freedom-of-speech laws and cultural norms to do their job, because their material often derives from poking fun at taboos and criticizing authority.
This is what makes the participation of so many prominent comics in the Riyadh Comedy Festival so odd and disappointing. It would presumably be self-evident to anyone signing up to do a comedy gig sponsored by a monarchy with draconian restrictions on speech that this would not be the place for them to take a swipe at the host country’s government: It is widely known that the Saudi government executes journalists and protesters and that the media is strictly regulated. However, it appears that restrictions on speech were also applied to the invitations to the comedians.
The comic Atsuko Okatsuka posted on Threads screenshots of a contract offered to her by Sela Co., which is Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. The contract includes a section about “Content Restrictions,” which prohibits material that “may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule” the country, its royal family, or any religion. News outlets such as MSNBC and NBC News have not independently verified the claim, and Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, which announced the festival in July, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. Payments to perform the gigs range from $150,000 to $250,000.
NBC News reported that comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon “said in an episode of his podcast that he was dropped from the festival for making a joke about the country ‘having slaves.'” That was before the festival.
Some comics have slammed their peers for taking vast sums of money for the gigs to work with a viciously oppressive government. Marc Maron quipped that Saudi Arabia’s marketing should read, “From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss it.” Shane Gillis said he turned down an invitation even after Saudi Arabia allegedly doubled its offer to him because “you don’t 9/11 your friends.” (The mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was a Saudi national and had links to the Saudi royal family.)
Other comics pointed out that Saudi Arabia would be able to use this festival as propaganda to sanitize its authoritarian record. “The money is coming straight from the Crown Prince, who executes journalists they do not like,” Okatsuka wrote in her post. “A lot of the ‘you can’t say anything anymore!’ Comedians are doing the festival,” she added. The comedian Zach Woods also pointed out Saudi Arabia’s repression of dissidents and sarcastically challenged his followers on Instagram: “Name one comedian who hasn’t whored themself out to a dictator.”
Saudi Arabia’s comedy festival is an extension of its “Vision 2030” plan, the government’s public policy agenda to diversify its economy away from oil and expand into industries such as entertainment, technology, and tourism. As part of this agenda, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has attempted to liberalize specific sectors of Saudi civil society, aiming to make the country more attractive to Western investment and tourism, such as lifting its ban on women driving. However, this comedy festival primarily serves as propaganda, enabling the country to present a false image of an open society, despite the government’s continued hostility to democratic civil liberties, including freedom of speech and assembly.
Saudi Arabia has in the past been accused of sportswashing— using the hosting of sports leagues and events to divert attention from its human rights abuses. However, Saudi Arabia’s “comedy washing” appears to be even worse. All countries can use hosting sports events to distract in a general sense from their government’s misdeeds, including the U.S. In this case, though, the very nature of the comedy festival misrepresents the nature of Saudi society.
Maybe Saudi Arabia will succeed in convincing some people around the world that this comedy festival means the country is more open-minded than they previously thought. Perhaps it won’t. However, whether the comics at this event acknowledge it or not, they are contributing to that propaganda.
