{"id":477181,"date":"2025-10-06T02:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T02:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/477181\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T02:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T02:27:11","slug":"louis-ck-defends-decision-to-perform-at-riyadh-comedy-festival-as-a-good-opportunity-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/477181\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis CK defends decision to perform at Riyadh comedy festival as \u2018a good opportunity\u2019 | Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louis CK has defended his decision to perform at the Riyadh comedy festival<\/a> in Saudi Arabia after fellow comedians criticised the big names taking part<\/a> as whitewashing a regime guilty of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Real Time With Bill Maher, CK, who is co-headlining the festival with the British comedian Jimmy Carr on Monday night local time, said other comedians had been \u201creally surprised\u201d by the response from audiences in Riyadh so far.<\/p>\n

Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, Whitney Cummings, Aziz Ansari, Hannibal Burress, Jim Jefferies, Jo Koy, Tom Segura and Jeff Ross are among the lineup at Riyadh comedy festival, which finishes on 9 October.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a woman who\u2019s a lesbian and Jewish, who did a show there, and she got a standing ovation,\u201d CK said, referring to Jessica Kirson, who has expressed \u201csincere regret\u201d for performing at the festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, there\u2019s stuff going on that\u2019s unexpected in this thing,\u201d CK continued. \u201cPeople have been playing Saudi Arabia<\/a> for years. Comedians have been going and playing Arab countries. There was a film festival there recently, it\u2019s kind of opened up. But I\u2019ve always said no to Arab countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

CK said he was told there would only be two restrictions on what he could talk about on stage: \u201cTheir religion and their government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have jokes about those two things,\u201d he added. \u201cIt used to be when I got offers from places like that, there would be a long list, and I\u2019d just say, \u2018No, I don\u2019t need that.\u2019 But when I heard it\u2019s opening, I thought, that\u2019s awfully interesting. That just feels like a good opportunity. And I just feel like comedy is a great way to get in and start talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several comedians have questioned the ethics of performing comedy at a festival directly paid for by the Saudi Arabian government, which is notorious for human rights abuses and censorship, and its oppression of journalists, women and LGBTQ rights.<\/p>\n

The festival\u2019s producers include Sela<\/a>, a live events company owned by Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund; and the kingdom\u2019s General Entertainment Authority, which is chaired by Turki al-Sheikh, a royal adviser dogged by allegations of human rights violations, including the detention of people who criticise him on social media.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch argued<\/a> the festival was an effort by the Saudi government to whitewash its actions \u201camid significant increase in repression including a crackdown on free speech, which many of these comedians defend but people in Saudi Arabia are completely denied\u201d.<\/p>\n

Comedians including Marc Maron, Atsuko Okatsuka and David Cross have been scathing of performers who have complained about cancel culture and censorship in the past for agreeing to take part in Riyadh, with Cross publishing a blistering statement on his website<\/a> that called out CK by name.<\/p>\n

\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?\u201d Cross wrote. \u201cAll 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

CK acknowledged the criticism on Maher\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had mixed feelings about it too,\u201d he said. \u201cI struggled about going once I heard what everybody was saying. There\u2019s some good in it, maybe some bad in it. But for me, I think it cuts toward going. That\u2019s my decision, and I know where it\u2019s coming from, because I can see right inside myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI love standup comedy, and I love comedians. So, the fact that that\u2019s opening up and starting to bud, I wanna see it, I wanna be part of it. I think that\u2019s a positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirson, who performed at the Riyadh festival on 29 September, told the Hollywood Reporter on Friday<\/a> that she had asked for a guarantee that she could talk about being a lesbian on stage, saying she \u201choped that this could help LGBTQ+ people in Saudi Arabia feel seen and valued \u2026 to my knowledge, I am the first openly gay comic to talk about it on stage in Saudi Arabia\u201d.<\/p>\n

But she added: \u201cAt the same time, I deeply regret participating under the auspices of the Saudi government.\u201d She apologised to fans who were disappointed by \u201ca poor decision that had repercussions I didn\u2019t fully consider\u201d and said she would donate her fee to a human rights organisation.<\/p>\n

Burr, who performed in Riyadh on 26 September, defended his choice to take part<\/a>, calling it \u201ca mind-blowing experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

\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,\u201d Burr said on an episode of his Monday Morning Podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled. The comedians that I\u2019ve been talking to are saying, \u2018Dude, you can feel [the audience] wanted it. They want to see real standup comedy.\u2019 \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to lead to a lot of positive things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louis CK has defended his decision to perform at the Riyadh comedy festival in Saudi Arabia after fellow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-477181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115324862299460078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}