Bill Burr defends his performance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival despite backlash, calls it “top 3 experiences I’ve ever had”

Stand-up comedian and podcaster Bill Burr shared his experience of performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival on the September 29 episode of his Monday Morning Podcast.

According to Variety, comedian Atsuko Okatsuka claimed that there were certain restrictions on content about religion, politics, and the queer community. Following this, there was a lot of backlash from other comedians toward those who chose to perform at the event.

However, sharing his experience of performing at the festival, Bill Burr said on his podcast:

“It was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely top 3 experiences I've ever had and I don't know, I'm still trying to process it. And then one of the coolest things was I went over there and came right back and I didn't even try to get on Middle Eastern time. I just said f*ck it. I was falling asleep at like 6:30 in the morning and sleeping until 2:00.”

He also highlighted the restrictions that were in place, saying:

“When they first went to set it up over there, the rules on what they had about what you could say and what you couldn't say in Saudi Arabia, the people running the festivals will be like, ‘All right, well, man, that's game, set, match. If this is like all you can talk about and you want some good comedians, like this isn't going to work.’”

Bill Burr said that following certain negotiations, they made the rules flexible, except for religion, like nobody could make fun of the royals. The other restriction was about the queer community.

Bill Burr said people took pictures with him after his performance

Bill Burr talked about the time he went on stage, and the crowd, which included diplomats, enjoyed his jokes. As he got more comfortable, he thought of a risky joke. At first, he told himself not to say it, but then decided to go for it. The audience loved it, and after that, he continued with his whole act. He added:

“I got out of there. I got off stage. Everybody took pictures and all of that type of stuff. And uh the Royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. the people that were doing the festival were thrilled and uh yeah, it was just this great positive thing.”

He went on:

“And I gotta tell you, just to be a part of that was was it was f*cking amazing. And and the communities that I've been talking to just saying like, dude, you can feel it. They wanted it.”

Burr also said that coming back from trips was usually tough due to jet lag and his kids waking him up, but this time it wasn’t like that. He expressed his gratitude towards the people in Bahrain and Riyadh who came to his shows. He shared that performing at the first comedy festival in Saudi Arabia was an amazing experience, and he believed it would bring many good things in the future.

Also Read: “It’s a whitewashing regime”: Zach Woods calls out comedians participating in Riyadh Comedy Festival despite ongoing issues in Saudi Arabia

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