A recently surfaced podcast reveals comedians Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino making provocative jokes about performing for wealthy Saudi royalty months before they actually appeared at the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival in October 2024.
In the recording, the duo discussed hypothetical scenarios involving Saudi princes with irreverence. When contemplating a potential $300,000 payday, Lee declared, “If we have a rich Saudi prince that watches the show, wherever you are, I know you’re out there. Please do this for us, and we’ll do anything for you. And I mean anything.”
The conversation escalated into crude territory as they joked about extreme financial arrangements. “If a Saudi prince said, I’ll give you the money, but you have to come and be my f*ck slave,” one comedian posed hypothetically. Lee responded with inappropriate humor before the discussion turned to a $100 million offer scenario.
“What if this Saudi prince bumped into you somewhere and was like, come back to Saudi with me and be my princess. I give you $100 million,” Santino suggested.
Lee’s immediate response was telling: “He seems cute.” When pressed further about the substantial sum, Lee simply said, “Once they heard the number.”
The comedians also discussed Saudi Arabia’s restrictive laws, though with outdated information about women’s driving rights. “You’re not allowed to drive. Women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia,” one said, though they acknowledged the recent policy changes. They continued with exaggerated claims about punishment for minor infractions, joking that “if you like stutter or misstep anything verbally, they’re allowed to stone you to death in the streets.”
These earlier comments take on new significance given their eventual participation in the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which ran from October 4-9, 2024. The festival featured major names including Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, and Bill Burr, drawing significant criticism from human rights advocates and fellow comedians.
Marc Maron, who was not invited to perform, criticized the event in his stand-up, saying, “From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert.” He referenced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s alleged connection to journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination, noting that “the same guy that’s gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi.”
The festival’s timing proved particularly controversial, coinciding with the seventh anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Human Rights Watch condemned the event, stating that the Saudi government was using it “to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.”
Shane Gillis revealed he declined participation despite organizers “doubling the bag” when he initially refused. “It was a significant bag, but I’d already said no,” Gillis explained. “I took a principled stand.”
The controversy exposed the financial arrangements and content restrictions involved in such events. Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka shared screenshots of her festival invitation, which included “Content Restrictions” prohibiting material that could “degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute” Saudi Arabia, its royal family, or any religion. She noted the irony that many “you can’t say anything anymore!” comedians were participating despite these censorship requirements.
Several comedians publicly rejected offers, including Mike Birbiglia and Leslie Liao. Stavros Halkias also declined, though he revealed that Chris Distefano, who did perform, was encouraged by his fiancée to “take that f**king money.”
At least one performer had second thoughts. Nimesh Patel initially agreed but later canceled, posting that he had “a change of heart.” He said he would instead “do 40 shows that I had not planned on doing here in the perfectly clean, moral, above-everyone-else, United States of America” to compensate for the lost income.
Actress and activist Leah Remini launched a particularly sharp attack on participating comedians, accusing them of “culture washing” for the Saudi regime. She specifically called out the apparent hypocrisy of performers like Bill Burr, who previously mocked Beyoncé for performing for Muammar Gaddafi’s son, and Pete Davidson, whose father died in the September 11 attacks that involved 15 Saudi nationals.
When questioned about performing in Saudi Arabia despite his personal connection to 9/11, Davidson was remarkably candid: “I get the routing and then I see the number and I go, I’ll go.”
