Riyadh Comedy Festival Headliners Worked Under a Gag Clause

Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka posted a Riyadh Comedy Festival contract on 27 September 2025 that banned jokes degrading the kingdom, its royals, or any religion. Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, Aziz Ansari, and Pete Davidson still played the bill. Two comics who talked about the country before they landed lost the gig.

Human Rights Watch had asked the people on that stage to call for the release of detained activists. After the last show, the group said none of them had.

What the Riyadh Contract Banned on Stage

The inaugural festival ran from 26 September to 9 October 2025 at Boulevard City in the Saudi capital. Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority billed it as the world’s largest comedy festival and put more than 50 acts on the poster. Chairman Turki Alalshikh, a royal adviser, had teased the dates in May.

أفضل 50 ستاند اب كوميدي بالعالم جايين مهرجان الرياض للكوميديا من الفترة 26 سبتمبر إلى 10 أكتوبر 🔥😎

The best 50 stand-up comedians in the world are coming to the Riyadh Comedy Festival from September 26 to October 10 🔥😎 pic.twitter.com/2rVCaxbE10

— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) May 16, 2025

Okatsuka turned the offer down and posted the “content restrictions” page. The Human Rights Foundation later praised her for having posted the terms the regime required. The clause was not a vibe. It was a list.

THE RIDER’S THREE BANS

• The kingdom: No material that may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture, or people.
• The palace: The same ban covered the Saudi royal family, the legal system, and the government.
• Religion: Any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice sat on the same list.

Okatsuka wrote that the money was coming straight from the crown prince, “who actively executes journalists, ppl with nonlethal drug offenses, bloggers, etc without due process.” She added the line that stuck to the bill: a lot of the “you can’t say anything anymore!” comedians were doing the festival, and they had to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they could make.

A lot of the “you can’t say anything anymore!” comedians are doing the festival. They had to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they can make.

Atsuko Okatsuka, comedian, posting the offer she refused

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression later treated that page as the working rulebook. Saudi officials look to have enforced it offstage as well as on it. When two comedians were dropped from the lineup, it was not because a set had bombed. It was because they had described the country out loud before they flew.

Who Went, Who Walked, Who Got Cut

When the names leaked, the first round of festival backlash landed on the people who said yes. Marc Maron mocked the bill as a product “from the folks that brought you 9/11.” David Cross wrote that he was disgusted, and asked how anyone was supposed to take the headliners seriously on cancel culture after they had signed. Shane Gillis, who refused, put it in one sentence: “You don’t 9/11 your friends.”

The General Entertainment Authority’s own kickoff notice still sold a lineup of the world’s biggest stars, including names that had already quit or been cut. The split on the ground was simpler than the poster.

WHO SAID YES AND WHO SAID NO

Mike Birbiglia, Leslie Liao, and Stavros Halkias also said they passed. The people who stayed were not a random club bill. They were the names the state wanted on the poster.

Burr Bargained It Down to Royals and Religion

Bill Burr played opening night, then spent the next week explaining himself. On his podcast he called the trip a mind-blowing experience and ranked it in his top three. “The royals loved the show,” he said. “Everyone was happy.”

He did not deny the gag. He said the first list was longer, that people around the festival told the hosts they would not get good comics that way, and that the hosts then cut it back. The remainder, as he told it, was blunt.

They just negotiated it all the way down to just a couple things, which were, basically: Don’t make fun of royals [and] religion.

Bill Burr, comedian, Monday Morning Podcast

Louis C.K. described a similar pair. He said he was told there would be two limits, “their religion and their government,” and that he did not have jokes about those two things. Pete Davidson, talking before the dates, claimed there were no restrictions on what he could perform. Those are three different accounts of three different deals. The Okatsuka page is the only one the public has seen in writing.

Burr’s version is the one that makes the irony tighter, not looser. Comedy’s whole act is punching at power and at holy cows. The bargain he described left both of those off the table, then praised the hosts for moving the ball. He later told a live taping with Conan O’Brien that isolation would not pull the country forward, and that “they’re not gonna progress with isolation.”

Riyadh Heard a Free-Speech Joke With a Gag

Chappelle played to a crowd of 6,000 and used the set to talk about speech in the United States. He mentioned Charlie Kirk. Then he delivered the line that did more damage than any heckle.

It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.

Dave Chappelle, on stage at the Riyadh Comedy Festival

He also said that if he talked about Kirk at home he might get canceled, and that he was nervous to return because “they’re going to do something to me so that I can’t say what I want to say.” The obvious reply wrote itself. The contract, at least the one Okatsuka posted, had already named the subjects he was not allowed to touch. Daring him to try Jamal Khashoggi’s name on that stage was the punchline people kept offering, because that is the test the rider was built to fail.

In a Netflix special that landed on 20 December 2025, Chappelle said he did not feel guilty at all. He restated that it was easier to talk in Saudi Arabia for him than in America, and said transgender jokes “went over very well” there. He mentioned Khashoggi by name that time, with a rest-in-peace, then changed the subject. That is the closest any headliner came to the anniversary that sat in the middle of the run. Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul on 2 October 2018. The seventh anniversary fell on a festival night.

Two Prisoners Went Unnamed on the Bill

Human Rights Watch did not ask for a boycott. On 19 September 2025 it wrote to representatives of billed comics and requested a meeting. Nobody replied. On 23 September it went public. Joey Shea, the group’s Saudi Arabia researcher, said the seventh anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder was no laughing matter, and that comics taking hefty sums from Saudi officials should not stay silent on free speech.

The specific ask was two names. Waleed Abu al-Khair, a human rights defender, was serving a 15-year sentence for his activism. Manahel al-Otaibi is a fitness instructor and women’s rights activist. The group also pointed to Turki al-Jasser, a writer and journalist executed on 14 June 2025 for “terrorist crimes,” a case it said looked like punishment for peaceful speech.

THE NAMES THEY WERE ASKED TO SAY

• Waleed Abu al-Khair: Human rights defender serving a 15-year prison sentence, the first name on the Watch’s list.
• Manahel al-Otaibi: Fitness instructor and women’s rights activist the group asked every billed comic to mention.
• Turki al-Jasser: Writer executed on 14 June 2025, months before the first joke in Boulevard City.
• Jamal Khashoggi: Journalist murdered on 2 October 2018; the seventh anniversary landed during the festival.

On 8 October 2025, with the run almost over, the Watch said none of the performers appeared to have used the stage, or their feeds, to ask for Waleed or Manahel. Shea stressed the group had wanted speech, not a empty chair.

Human Rights Watch didn’t call for comedians to boycott the Riyadh Comedy Festival, but simply asked them to express their support for free speech by urging the release of Saudi activists unjustly imprisoned.

Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher, Human Rights Watch

Aziz Ansari, on Jimmy Kimmel Live on 6 October 2025, said part of the fee should go to causes that support a free press and human rights, and that he shared the concerns people had brought up. He named the Watch and Reporters Without Borders. Jessica Kirson said she was donating her entire fee to a human rights group, and later posted a regret: the choice had weighed on her, and she was sorry she had performed under a government that continues to violate basic rights. She also said that, to her knowledge, she was the first openly gay comic to talk about that on a Saudi stage. The Watch said it could not accept the money. It still wanted the names.

The Fees Comics Quoted for One Show

Official appearance fees were never published. The figures that stuck all came from people who were invited, and from one man who was fired.

THE MONEY ON THE TABLE

• Tim Dillon: Said he was offered $375,000 for one show on 8 October, and that other acts were offered as much as $1.6 million.
• Shane Gillis: Called it a significant bag, said he had already refused, then said organizers doubled the offer.
• Nimesh Patel: Said they offered a lot of money, that he is not in a position to refuse life-changing money, and that this sum was not life-changing. He canceled.
• Weird Al Yankovic: Said in July 2026 the offer for one show was seven figures, more than he had ever been offered in his life for a single date.

Dillon’s own tape is the cleanest statement of the deal as some of the invitees understood it. “They’re paying me enough money to look the other way,” he said, and, in the bit that got him removed, “So what if they have slaves.” Jefferies, on Theo Von’s podcast, said one reporter had been killed by the government, called it unfortunate, and said it was not a hill he was going to die on. Both men were already willing to take the check. Naming the abuse was the part the hosts would not buy.

Patel, after backing out, wrote that he could do 40 extra shows in the United States to make up the lost bag. Davidson, asked why he would take Saudi money given his father’s death on 11 September 2001, did not argue the politics. He said he sees the routing, then the number, then he goes. Cross, who did not go, guessed at what the number was for: a fourth house, a boat, more sneakers.

The Insult Still Follows Bill Burr

There was no second Riyadh Comedy Festival of that size in 2026. The check still does work. In July 2026, Yankovic told an interviewer he had been invited, that the one-show fee was seven figures, and that he could not be part of it. He said he was not attacking the people who took the money. He said he was doing well enough that he did not need a sum that made him feel icky, “and that kind of did.”

Burr’s everyman talk about billionaires and workers now meets the same reply it met in Boulevard City. He took the Riyadh bag. The line is lazy and it is durable, which is how these things live. Chappelle’s “easier to talk here” line lives the same way. It is still the clip, because it is the joke the rider made for him.

Kirson’s regret and Ansari’s offer to skim the fee are the only public flinches from people who actually went. The Watch refused the cash and repeated the original ask. Shea said the comics who went to Riyadh could still demand that Saudi officials release Manahel and Waleed. That demand was not made on the stage they were paid to hold.

In July 2026, Yankovic said seven figures for one show would have made him feel icky, and he turned it down. The headliners who went already knew the price of the mic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where in Riyadh were the comedy festival shows held?

All of the billed stand-up sat inside Boulevard City, the entertainment district in the capital. Tickets were sold for the Mohammed Al-Ali Theatre, the Bakr Al-Sheddi Theatre, SEF Arena, and ANB Arena, with sales opening on the WeBook app on 1 August 2025 for the first 26 acts.

Did Human Rights Watch ask comedians to boycott the festival?

No. The 23 September 2025 statement asked billed comics to use the dates to press for the release of unjustly held Saudi dissidents, journalists, and activists. The group wrote to managers on 19 September 2025 to request a meeting and said it received no reply.

How long was Atsuko Okatsuka asked to perform in Riyadh?

The offer she posted asked for a 60 to 75 minute set and for her to promote the date on social media. Very few of the comics who did go posted that kind of promo while the fight over the rider was live.

What joint shows were on the Riyadh Comedy Festival bill?

The authority’s kickoff notice paired Jimmy Carr with Louis C.K., billed Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee as Bad Friends, listed Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant Live, and advertised Jeff Ross with friends and Wayne Brady with friends, on top of the solo headliners.

Did Human Rights Watch accept donations from the comics who performed?

No. After Ansari offered part of his fee and Kirson said she would give her entire fee to a human rights group, the Watch said it was unable to accept the donation and that the useful act was still a public call to free Waleed Abu al-Khair and Manahel al-Otaibi.