Jay Jurden Says the Riyadh Comedy Festival Was Like Performing for Donald Trump Jr. ‘If Don Jr. Could Kill People’

Despite the best attempts of Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle and many other members of the Riyadh Comedy Festival lineup to frame their Saudi Arabia trip as some sort of stand-up humanitarian mission, the rest of the American comedy community isn’t about to let them forget which dictator signed their checks.

By now, it’s clear that Burr, Chappelle, Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart, Jessica Kirson and the rest of the American A-listers who performed in the Saudi Royal Court’s international comedy festival underestimated the impact that taking money from murderous billionaires would have on their professional reputations. Kirson, for one, has apologized to critics of the festival and donated her entire appearance fee to charity, but figures like Burr and Chappelle have only doubled down on their decision to appear in a festival that was organized by a man who has an entire wing of the Riyadh prison named after him because of his passion for taking political prisoners. 

Many comedians who refused offers to appear at the Riyadh Comedy Festival have denounced the event as a whitewashing exercise for brutal authoritarians, and many more have mocked the Saudi comics whose PR teams are now working longer hours than the Crown Prince’s many “indentured servants.”

TV writer and stand-up comedian Jay Jurden is one of the latter group of comics, and he recently sat down with Vulture to give his thoughts on the Riyadh Comedy Festival and its defensive headliners, telling them, “I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad it was a round trip. But guess what? We going to make fun of you for a little bit."

“No one’s being excommunicated from the comedy society, everyone is welcome back, everyone can come back to wherever they told jokes before, but, just know, people are going to make fun of you a little bit! The same way we’re going to make fun of you if we saw you at the inauguration,” Jurden teased the Riyadh comedians, many of whom returned from Saudi Arabia red in their already-rosy face about the backlash to their business trip.

As many critics of the event have pointed out and Jurden reiterated, the Riyadh Comedy Festival wasn’t just some show thrown together by private Saudi citizens with a passion for comedy. The festival was a state-organized, Royal-Family-funded business venture to give Riyadh a reputation as an international entertainment destination, and the same Saudi Royals who regularly order the torture and execution of journalists paid for the show and sat in the luxury box. “If you do that festival, you’re performing for their Don Jr.,” Jurden explained, comparing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Donald Trump Jr. “You’re performing for their Don Jr., if Don Jr. could kill people. If Don Jr. had his own wing at Rikers (Island), that’s who you’re performing for."

Jurden suggested that, if the Riyadh comedians wanted to mitigate the blowback they’re experiencing, they should follow Kirson’s lead and donate a sizable chunk of their earnings from the festival “to a charitable organization that helps queer people, that helps women, that helps journalists, that helps free speech, anything. Then, okay, maybe we won’t make fun of you as much, but, like I said before, the rule is, if you do it, you come back, I’m making fun of you.”

Jurden argued that the Riyadh comedians who feel attacked by the feedback they’re getting from others in the comedy community should choose to take the negative comments as a bit of roast comedy between peers instead of exploding on their critics. When his host brought up Burr, Jurden joked of Burr's hyperbolic praise for the Saudi Arabian experience, “He had a Malcolm going to Mecca moment.” Jurden also criticized Burr’s self-inflating and “patronizing” assessment of the impact that his Saudi Arabia visit will have on the future of free speech and comedy in the country, sarcastically imitating him, “Hey you guys! Isn’t McDonald’s great?” 

Jurden then said of Burr’s high-minded framing of the event, “It’s naïve and gullible to think that that’s what’s going on.”

But, ultimately, Jurden maintains that the blowback Burr and his Riyadh buddies are feeling is all just a little justified mockery. “And fans will also make fun of you a little bit, until you have another great bit that comes out, until you have another great podcast moment, and then they'll go, ‘Oh you’re very funny,'” Jurden explained.

Jurden is probably right that, for the Riyadh comedians who take their burns in stride, more time and more jokes will help the fans forget about their anger. However, in Burr’s case, that move-on moment won’t come if he keeps yelling about bots and canceling his podcasting taping.