Unlike Pete Davidson or Dave Chappelle, this comedy star rejected Saudi millions

Musical satirist “Weird Al” Yankovic has revealed that he was among a number of big-name comics offered six or seven figures to perform at the controversial, state-sponsored Riyadh Comedy Festival that took place in Saudi Arabia last fall.

But Yankovic turned the offer down, which meant saying “no” to a paycheck of $1 million or more.

“I wish people would offer me things that I didn’t feel bad about accepting,” Yankovic told the Pennsylvania publication TribLive, according to Variety. “I don’t think I’ve mentioned this anywhere, but I was invited to the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which is something that I obviously did not want to do. They offered me, I’m not going to say how much, but it was seven figures to do one show, which is way more than I’ve ever been offered in my life to do a show. But I just couldn’t be part of that.”

Yankovic made what he believed was a moral choice, a move that somehow eluded other comedy stars, including Pete Davidson, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari, as Variety reported. Instead these and the other some 50 participating comedians took payments that Variety said ran from the mid-six figures up to $1.6 million for one show.

“I’m not dissing anybody that took the money because I’m sure everybody that went there got a lot of money,” Yankovic also said in the interview. “I’m sure they had their own reasons and justifications for doing it. But I’m doing enough that I don’t need to take any amount of money if it makes me feel icky, and that kind of did.”

The Riyadh Comedy Festival divided America’s entertainment industry, according to Variety. High-profile critics in the comedy world, including Marc Maron, Jimmy Kimmel and David Cross, argued that the Saudi regime, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, used this and other splashy cultural events headlined by A-listers to polish its global image and to “launder its reputation” for being repressive and for committing alleged human rights abuses.

Critics were especially incensed that anyone would take money from a government that in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi or that imprisons women’s rights activists and LGBTQ people and allegedly subjects prisoners to torture and inhuman conditions, according to Amnesty International.

In a press release ahead of the comedy festival, Human Rights Watch likewise accused Saudi Arabia of hosting the festival to “deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.”

The participating comedians should use the comedy festival “to publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists,” Human RIghts Watch also said.

Davidson especially came under fire for taking money from a government linked by lawsuits to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Fox News reported. Davidson’s father, New York City firefighter Scott Davidson, was killed while responding to the World Trade Center after it was struck by two hijacked commercial airplanes. The “Saturday Night Live” alum was 7 years old when his father died.

“I’ve been getting a little bit of flak just because my dad died (in) 9/11,” Davidson said while defending himself in a 2025 podcast interview. “So they’re like, ‘How could you possibly go there?’”

Other comedians justified taking money from Saudi Arabia by saying their appearances could be a way to “get in” to a place and getting people “talking,” as Louis C.K. said.

“There’s people over there that don’t agree with the stuff that the government’s doing, and to ascribe like the worst behavior of the government onto those people, that’s not fair,” Ansari said, while saying he hoped that the festival would push “things to be more open” in Saudi Arabia.

Chappelle expressed more self-interest by joking that he, as a performer, might have more freedom to say what he wants in Saudi Arabia. He quipped: “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.”