Comedian Dave Chappelle devoted part of his recent set at the Riyadh Comedy Festival to speak his mind about the attempts by right-wingers and the Trump administration to limit freedom of speech in the United States. The headliner spoke to a mixed crowd of 6,000 about it, saying: “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.”
“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” he said at another point in his routine, according to the New York Times, adding: “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”
Chappelle was part of a star-studded lineup of 50 comics appearing at the festival organized by the General Entertainment Authority, which is being hosted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia until Oct. 10. They include Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, Whitney Cummings, and Gabriel Iglesias, among others. Other comedians such as Atsuko Okatsuka declined to appear, noting the country’s record of repression against dissidents, and its anti-LBGTQ policies, as well as rules in the contract prohibiting any jokes made about the royal family or Saudi Arabia.
The festival has been the subject of fierce criticism from those who are accusing Saudi Arabia of “artwashing” in order to move attention away from its disturbing human rights record. This includes the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey in 2018. One comic, Tim Dillon, also cited money as a factor. He was dropped from the festival after making jokes about slavery and migrant workers in the kingdom, but revealed he was to receive $375,000 while top-tier comics reportedly received $1.6 million for their appearance.
Chappelle’s set also saw him speak out about late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel being pulled off the air after his monologue about the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk last month. He closed his set, going back to that situation, expressing his own fears again about being forcibly censored. “They’re going to do something to me so that I can’t say what I want to say,” he stated.
But in his usual fashion, he continued by explaining that if it did happen, he would give a code phrase. “It’s got to be something I would never say in practice, so if I actually say it, you’ll know never to listen to anything else I say after that,” he said. “Here’s the phrase: I stand with Israel.”
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