David Cross condemns his "heroes" for taking Riyadh Comedy Festival "blood money"

Okatsuka previously posted the Riyadh contract from her own offer for the festival, which included a long list of “censorship rules” forbidding jokes that criticize Saudi Arabia or its royal family. Tim Dillon was dropped from the festival for joking about the country’s “slaves” ahead of the event, but he said he’d been offered $375,000 for one performance and other comedians were offered as much as $1.6 million (via NPR). Pete Davidson, who has caught particular heat due to the Saudi regime’s connection to the 9/11 terrorist attack that killed his father, said he was unbothered by the criticism and conspiracies kicked up by the festival. “I get the routing, and I see the number, and I go, ‘I’ll go,'” he said during an appearance on Theo Von’s podcast.

“I don’t understand how being rich can make someone such a whore,” Cross wrote in his post. “Poor people desperate to improve their (or their families lives), sure. Still not acceptable but I can understand the desperation to put food on the table. But this? I mean, it’s not like this is some commercial for a wireless service or a betting app. This is truly the definition of ‘blood money’. You might as well do commercials for Lockheed Martin or Zyklon B. Holy shit, I remember the backlash I got for appearing in Alvin and the Chipmunks! You would’ve thought that I had taken money from a bunch of people responsible for funding Al Qaeda!”

In a press release, Human Rights Watch stated that the Riyadh Comedy Festival was an attempt by Saudi Arabia “to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.” The org stated that “to avoid contributing to laundering the Saudi government’s reputation,” participating comics “should use the comedy festival to publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists.” HRW reached out “to the representatives and management of a group of announced participating comedians to request a meeting about Saudi Arabia’s human rights crisis,” but didn’t hear back. 

Similarly, Cross concluded his post with a call for readers to donate to the Human Rights Foundation and a message to the comedians participating in the Riyadh Comedy Festival. He wrote, “Unless you open your sets with, ‘This is dedicated to all of the widows and widowers and kids orphaned by this bloodthirsty oppressive regime especially from the zany shenanigans on 9/11. Never Forget Motherfuckers! Alright, so it’s great to be here. I’m gonna be killing it tonight! But in the good way! Straight up. No MbS.’ then your hypocrisy will never not be noted.”