Bill Burr’s Fans Are Still Out for Blood After He Postpones Live Podcast Taping
Bill Burr just canceled his plan to tape an episode of Monday Morning Podcast in front of a live audience on Saturday. Maybe he was worried that the audience would be full of bots.
Ever since Burr returned home from Saudi Arabia, where he played at the Saudi Royal Court-organized Riyadh Comedy Festival, he has been at war with critics of his trip who, like the Human Rights Watch, questioned whether it was appropriate for American A-listers to perform for the pleasure of billionaire despots who regularly torture and execute their own citizens for speaking out against the regime. Burr, himself, had to sign a contract promising not to make any jokes about the Saudi Royal Family, the Saudi legal system or any aspect of Saudi culture before performing in Riyadh, but he praised the royal organizers and called the trip, “Definitely top three experiences I’ve had.”
Back here in the States, and unfortunately for Burr, comedy fans have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and Burr has been catching some serious heat from fans and critics alike who consider the Riyadh show to be a betrayal of his recent anti-billionaire bent. Now, those fans are accusing him of postponing the Monday Morning Podcast live show in order to prevent the online backlash to Riyadh from spilling over into his stateside gigs.
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Burr should not have to worry about an ornery crowd ruining his podcast taping — I’m sure there’s a theater with proper acoustics and strict audience etiquette that would be happy to host the rescheduled show, so long as Burr is willing to fly to Pyongyang.
The above announcement graphic comes from the official Instagram account for the Gardena Cinema in Los Angeles, where Burr was supposed to tape the live episode of Monday Morning Podcast. The venue took down the post just 45 minutes after it went up — possibly due to more backlash in the comments — but fans in the Bill Burr subreddit caught it before it disappeared.
“Whyja postpone the show, BILL,” one fan asked in the comment section of a thread about the live show cancellation.
Another follower asked, “But i though billy bloodmoney said it was bots how can they come to a show if they are bots?”
“Either he or the venue doing the event feels there’s gonna be some heckling in the crowd,” one more hypothesized.
More fans questioned why Burr would schedule such an important live show just a couple weeks after playing a massively controversial festival in Saudi Arabia. “Dude in what fucking world would you a) not expect blowback from doing a show for the Saudis, and b) schedule a live show a couple weeks after doing that show for the Saudis?” a user asked. “Anybody with half a mind should have known to anticipate at least some blowback for going on stage for these folks.”
While Burr himself has yet to give ticket-holders an explanation as to why he canceled the live taping, the overwhelming consensus from his fandom is that the comedian is worried that there will be disruptive behavior from his more critical followers, which kind of goes against what Burr just told Conan O'Brien on the latter's podcast. “I really don’t give a fuck, Conan,” Burr said about the online outrage regarding his Riyadh show. “I’ve been to LAX enough in my life. I’ll fucking sit home for a little bit. I will actually tell you LAX is slightly sadder than Saudi Arabia.”
“Is this how he shows he doesn’t give a fuck?” one of Burr’s fans wrote, referencing his recent talk with O'Brien. “Or was that comedian bill burr speaking on conan and thus nothing said is to be taken seriously? WHERE’S THE LINE BETWEEN COMEDIAN AND HUMAN, BILL BLURR?!”
“I still think Bill’s comedy is funny, even though I respect him a lot less as a person. But you know how he always says something to the effect of ‘don’t listen to me, I’m just an ignorant guy’? I’m starting to realize that he truly meant that,” one more Monday Morning Podcast listener lamented. “Whenever he made some dumbass political comment on the podcast, I just thought he was joking to rile people up, but now I really think he’s misinformed and dumb as a brick. Not saying this as a way to excuse him, I’m just saying the guy is really just another dumbass who happens to be funny.”
