**Bill Burr Opens Up About Performing at Controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival**
*The Hollywood Reporter* | September 30, 2025 | By James Hibberd
Posted by nickcarraway
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Bill Burr recently took to his podcast to detail his experience performing last week in the Middle East at the highly controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival.
The actor-comedian described warming up nervously with a set in Bahrain to gauge what an audience in the region would find funny—and acceptable—before headlining the Saudi Arabian festival’s opening night on Friday.
The event, billed by organizers as the biggest comedy festival in the world, included performers such as Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, and about 50 others. However, the festival and its lineup have drawn intense criticism, even from fellow comedians, given Saudi Arabia’s history of oppression and human rights abuses.
Despite the controversy, Burr painted a portrait of the region’s people as ordinary fans of live comedy who, like audiences anywhere, want to relax, have fun, and enjoy humor.
“It was great to experience that part of the world and to be a part of the first comedy festival over there in Saudi Arabia,” Burr said. “The royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people running the festival were thrilled. The comedians I’ve been talking to are saying, ‘Dude, you can feel [the audience] wanted it. They want to see real stand-up comedy.’ It was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely one of the top three experiences I’ve had. I think it’s going to lead to a lot of positive things.”
Burr also revealed that restrictions on what comedians could say had been softened after some negotiation—though he didn’t specify with whom. Initially, festival organizers were told that strict rules about permitted content would make it difficult to attract quality comedians.
“When they first set it up, the rules about what you could and couldn’t say in Saudi Arabia were pretty tight,” Burr explained. “Organizers were told, ‘If you want some good comedians, this isn’t going to work.’ And, to their credit, they said, ‘Alright, what do we gotta do?’ They negotiated it all the way down to just a couple things: don’t make fun of royals and religion.”
These speech restrictions had been posted online by comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, who declined the festival’s invitation, though it remains unclear if these rules reflect the restrictions before or after negotiations.
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### Preparing for the Festival: Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
Burr first performed in Bahrain, a more socially liberal island nation compared to Saudi Arabia. Upon arrival, he was immediately confronted with the region’s tense atmosphere.
“When I was landing in Bahrain, I was nervous as hell,” Burr recalled. “Then the customs agent said, ‘You tell jokes about the Middle East? You think you’re going to come over here and get beheaded, right?’”
After a successful show in Bahrain, Burr observed locals interacting casually at a bar. “I thought, these guys—they’re just like us. I don’t speak the language, but I get it.”
However, upon flying into Saudi Arabia, his nerves returned, exacerbated by preconceived notions about the country.
“You think everybody’s going to be screaming ‘Death to America’ with machetes ready to chop your head off,” Burr said. “Because that’s what I’d been fed about that part of the world. I thought it would be really tense. Then I’m thinking, ‘Is that a Starbucks next to a Pizza Hut next to a Burger King next to a McDonald’s?’ They’ve got a Chili’s over here!”
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### Onstage in Riyadh
During his set in Riyadh, Burr pushed his material and banter further than expected, even performing a bit about gay men at the gym before shifting back to his usual act.
“I had to stop a couple times during the show and say, ‘I’ll be honest with you guys, I can’t believe any of you have any idea who I am. This is really amazing,’” he said. “It was just this great exchange of energy. [The audience] knows our reputation, so they were extra friendly.”
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### Backlash from the Comedy Community
Burr’s positive take on the festival comes amid criticism from other comedians such as Shane Gillis, Marc Maron, and David Cross. Cross, in particular, blasted performers participating in the event—including Burr—in strong terms.
“I am disgusted and deeply disappointed in this whole gross thing,” wrote Cross. “That people I admire, with unarguable talent, would condone this totalitarian fiefdom for… what, a fourth house? A boat? More sneakers? We can never again take seriously anything these comedians complain about.”
Meanwhile, MSNBC opinion writer Zeeshan Aleem accused the performers of engaging in “comedy-washing” in an op-ed. He described the festival as “an insidious tool to project a misleading image of the country’s incremental efforts to liberalize.”
“This comedy festival functions fundamentally as propaganda, allowing the country to falsely present an image of an open society when, in fact, the government remains hostile to democratic civil liberties tied to freedom of speech and assembly,” Aleem wrote.
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### The Debate Over Cultural Engagement
This controversy taps into a long-standing debate around cultural boycotts. On one side is the refusal to normalize or endorse authoritarian regimes; on the other, there are those who believe exposing such societies to Western values through art and culture fosters openness.
Political scientist Joseph S. Nye popularized the term *soft power* in the 1980s to describe using cultural influence to shape what other countries want and value.
The pop singer and humanitarian Sting echoed this idea during his 2009 performance in Uzbekistan, a country criticized for poor human rights and environmental practices.
“I am well aware of the Uzbek president’s appalling reputation in the field of human rights as well as the environment,” Sting said at the time. “I made the decision to play there in spite of that. I have come to believe that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counter-productive, where proscribed states are further robbed of the open commerce of ideas and art and as a result become even more closed, paranoid and insular.”
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