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 immense backlash after they were 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 prohibited from telling any negative jokes about the country, its royal family, or any religions.
Human Rights Watch claimed that the event was intended to “deflect attention from [Saudi Arabia’s] brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations,” noting that the festival coincided with the seventh anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate.
After his set at the festival and amid his press run for his new movie Good Fortune, Aziz was asked at length by Jimmy about why he chose to participate.
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“Now, obviously, this is something that’s become a big part of the news because people, a lot of comedians especially, are very upset because the people who paid the comedians to come to this are not good people,” Jimmy began. “It’s a pretty brutal regime. They’ve done a lot of horrible, horrible things, and so people are questioning why you would go over there and take their money to perform in front of these people. I’m just curious.”
“I’m glad you asked, because it’s something I’ve put a lot of thought into,” Aziz replied, noting that he reached out to his aunt, who lived there for some time. “She said, ‘There’s people over there that don’t agree with the stuff that the government’s doing, and to ascribe the worst behavior of the government onto those people, that’s not fair.’ Just like there’s people in America that don’t agree with the things the government is doing.”
While Jimmy acknowledged that things are far from peachy in the US, he alluded to the execution of a Saudi journalist in June this year (in August, Human Rights Watch said that 241 people had been executed in 2025). Jimmy continued, “They murdered a journalist. These are not good people over there. Did you deal with those people specifically?”
“I was just there to do a show for the people,” Aziz replied. “I talked to my wife about this before I went, and she said, ‘Whenever there’s repressive societies like this, they try to keep things out — whether it’s rock and roll music or blue jeans — because it makes people curious about outside ideas, outside values. And this is a very young country, like half the country is under the age of 25, and things can really change.’ And to me, a comedy festival felt like something that’s pushing things to be more open and to push a dialogue.”
“You kind of have to make a choice of whether you’re going to isolate or engage. For me, especially being me and looking the way I do and being from a Muslim background, it felt like something I should be a part of. And I hope it pushes things in a positive direction,” Aziz continued.
“I said to myself and my team, ‘Hey, if we do this, part of the fee should go to support causes that support free press and human rights,” he continued, to applause from the audience. When asked for 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 didn’t call for comedians to boycott the Riyadh Comedy Festival, but simply asked them to express their support for free speech by urging the release of Saudi activists unjustly imprisoned,” Joey Shea, a Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement from the organization. “Aziz Ansari and other comedians have generously offered to donate part of their performance fees to rights groups like Human Rights Watch, but while we cannot accept, it is not too late for them to call for the release of detained Saudi activists.”
You can watch the full interview here.
