Pete Davidson Defends His Participation in the Riyadh Comedy Festival
If the Riyadh Comedy Festival is a scheme to distract from Saudi Arabia’s terrible human rights record, Pete Davidson insists he’s not in on it.
During a recent appearance on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, the SNL alum shut down speculation that he’d been paid by the Saudi Arabian government to press certain talking points, explaining that in his eyes, taking the stage at Boulevard City is more or less just another gig.
“I’ve heard there’s subreddits of, ‘I think all these people are in bed with (the Saudi royal family),’” Davidson explained when asked about whether he was aware of any effort by the nation’s leadership to “influence” him and other comedians. “I just, you know, I get the (flight) routing and then I see the number and I go, ‘I’ll go.’”
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Since the Riyadh Comedy Festival, touted as the “world’s largest comedy festival,” was first announced back in July, human-rights advocates have denounced the event as a deliberate act of “comedy-washing” meant to obscure Saudi Arabia’s record of killing journalists, mass executions and alleged use of torture in prisons.
“The Saudi government has invested billions into high-profile entertainment events like these in a deliberate effort to whitewash the country’s human rights record and deflect from the egregious abuses that continue to happen inside of the country,” Joey Shea, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, recently told CBS News.
Given this criticism, Davidson, like Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle, Whitney Cummings and other comics set to perform this weekend, said he’s faced backlash for his participation in the festival, including comments asking him about his father, a firefighter who died while responding to the September 11th attacks.
“I’ve been getting a little bit of flak just because my dad died (in) 9/11,” Davidson recalled, referencing allegations that the Saudi government supported al-Qaeda. “So they’re like, ‘How could you possibly go there?’”
The answer to that is pretty simple: money.