Aziz Ansari was asked by Jimmy Kimmel about his participation in the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival.
Numerous comedians, including Pete Davidson, Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle, faced intense backlash after being announced as part of the Saudi Arabian Comedy Festival. It was paid for by the Saudi government and, according to screenshots shared by comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, comedians were banned from telling negative jokes about the country, its royal family or any religions.
Human Rights Watch claimed the event was intended to “deflect attention from Saudi Arabia’s brutal suppression of free expression and other widespread human rights abuses,” noting that the festival coincided with the seventh anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate.
After his appearance at the festival and during the press conference for his new film Good luckAziz was asked in detail by Jimmy why he decided to take part.
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Aziz Ansari / Via youtube.com
“Of course, this is something that has become a big part of the news because people, especially a lot of comedians, are very upset because the people who paid the comedians to come here are not good people,” Jimmy began. “It’s a pretty brutal regime. They’ve done a lot of terrible, terrible things, and so people wonder why you go there and take their money to perform in front of those people. I’m just curious.”
“I’m glad you asked, because I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Aziz replied, noting that he had reached out to his aunt, who lived there for some time. “She said, ‘There are people over there who don’t agree with what the government is doing, and it’s not fair to attribute the government’s worst behavior to those people.’ Just like there are people in America who don’t agree with the things the government does.”
While Jimmy acknowledged that things are far from rosy in the US, he alluded to the execution of a Saudi journalist in June this year (in August, Human Rights Watch said 241 people would have been executed in 2025). Jimmy continued, “You murdered a journalist. Those aren’t good people over there. Have you dealt with those people specifically?”
“I was just there to put on a show for the people,” Aziz replied. “Before I went there, I was talking to my wife about it, and she said, ‘When you have repressive societies like this, they try to keep things out – be it rock ‘n’ roll music or blue jeans – because that makes people curious about foreign ideas, foreign values. And this is a very young country, half the country is under 25, and things can really change.’ And to me, a comedy festival felt like something that opened things up and pushed a dialogue.”
“You kind of have to choose between isolating or engaging. For me, especially being myself and looking like that and coming from a Muslim background, it felt like something I should be a part of. And I hope that it pushes things in a positive direction,” Aziz continued.
“I said to myself and my team, ‘Hey, if we’re going to do this, part of the fee should go to causes that support free press and human rights,” he continued to applause from the audience. When asked about specific organizations, Aziz said, “I think I read about Reporters Without Borders, which I think is really great, and Human Rights Watch.”
“Human Rights Watch did not call on comedians to boycott the Riyadh Comedy Festival, but simply urged them to express their support for free expression by pushing for the release of the unjustly imprisoned Saudi activists,” said Joey Shea, a Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement from the organization. “Aziz Ansari and other comedians have generously offered to donate a portion of their performance fees to human rights groups like Human Rights Watch, but while we cannot accept that, it is not too late for them to demand the release of imprisoned Saudi activists.”
You can watch the full interview here.
