The Louis C.K. Subreddit Is at War with Louis C.K.

I feel like, personally, if you’re in the Louis C.K. subreddit in 2025, you’re probably not someone who can be too ruffled by the bad behavior of famous people. There must be some part of your brain that’s like: “What’s a little non-consensual public rub-and-tug between strangers? He’s no Ted Bundy.” 

But everyone has a moral compass, no matter which way it spins — and in this instance, some Louis C.K. fans simply can’t stomach the comedian’s decision to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. In a post on the Louis C.K. subreddit, one disillusioned fan shared one of C.K.’s excuses for appearing at the festival and then linked to a YouTube video where the man was making jokes that he probably couldn’t have told during his set in Saudi Arabia. 

That said, not everyone in the C.K. subreddit is so quick or eager to point out the comedian’s hypocrisy when it comes to Riyadh. “He clearly meant he had no jokes about that stuff in his current act,” one person responded to the post. 

There was a lot of back and forth about this, but with more people willing to take C.K. to task for his decision than not. “Oh nice, that makes it ok for him to be a hypocrite and a complete weirdo. So if he has jokes about religion in his current act he wouldn’t have gone? Niceeee,” another person wrote.

A lot of debate was had about whether C.K. was actually selling out by taking a check from as one Redditor put it “Mr. Bonesaw himself,” or if performing in Riyadh was any different from performing for a corporation asking for certain material to be nixed. 

The most dedicated person in the thread simply wrote: “Hoping my Saudi prince costume arrives for his show this weekend.” This is by far the funniest response, because it implies one supports the comedian enough to purchase tickets to his show, but critical enough to dress like the Saudi princes who funded C.K.'s sellout.

This is far from the first post in the subreddit decrying C.K.’s decision to perform in Riyadh, with another recent post stating, “My husband and I bought tickets several months ago to see Louis CK in Montreal this Wednesday. We’ve been so disappointed in his decision to participate in the Riyadh comedy festival and how he has subsequently defended his decision that we’ve decided we’re no longer interested in going to see his set.”

Naturally, the thread was filled with numerous “what aboutisms” calling the people who wanted to skip the show hypocrites for caring about C.K. performing for “Mr. Bonesaw” but not other social issues like homelessness and the mining of tech minerals.

It’s a real battlefield in the Louis C.K. subreddit. Hopefully, everyone can agree to move past this transgression just like they got over the nonconsensual masturbation stuff.