Rightwing podcaster and U.S. comedian Tim Dillon has claimed he was fired from doing the Riyadh Comedy Festival over previous jokes he made about slavery.
Dillon, 40, was originally expected to perform at the Saudi Arabia festival October 8. However, he no longer appears on the bill.
Addressing his absence from the lineup on the latest episode of his podcast, The Tim Dillon Show, the comic recalled being told by his manager, “They heard what you said about them having slaves. They didn’t like that.”
“I addressed it in a funny way,” Dillon insisted, “and they fired me.”
He added: “I certainly wasn’t gonna show up in your country and insult the people that are paying me the money.”
The controversial remarks in question featured in an August 30 episode, in which Dillon repeatedly commented on the alleged slavery in Saudi Arabia, and his decision to accept $375,000 for his act at the country’s inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival.
The Independent has contacted the Riyadh Comedy Festival for comment.
“They’re paying me enough money to look the other way,” he claimed on his show. “I’m being paid a lot of money to not care about what they do in their country. I mean, it’s very simple. If you pay me lots of money, I will not comment on what’s going on. In fact, I will ignore it. And if something that I really disagree with is happening, the more money you pay me, the less I’m going to think about it.”
He continued: “I believe in looking the other way. I believe in pretending things are not happening that are. I believe in cognitive dissonance. I believe in ignoring the screams. I will sleep so soundly — I will sleep through the screams, sleep through the screams.
“Mind your own beeswax,” Dillon said. “There’s a lot of beeswax in Saudi Arabia. It’s not my problem. They’re paying me to keep my mouth shut.
“I’m gonna say something, and people aren’t gonna like it. If you think for one second that some of the slaves in that country are not proud of what they’ve built, you’re crazy. You’re literally crazy. You’re literally nuts. There are so many beautiful things that have happened as a result of forced labor,” he argued, as a picture of the pyramids appeared on the screen.
He explained that he was using the word “slave” only because “people have told me that.” “I haven’t looked into it, and I won’t,” he quipped.
The international comedy festival, running from September 26 to October 9, marks the first of its kind in the country. The Human Rights Watch has accused the Saudi government of hosting the festival as a way to “deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.”
The event will welcome a slate of some of the biggest names in comedy, such as Dave Chappelle, Jeff Ross, Gabriel Iglesias, Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart, Tom Segura, Jo Koy, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, and Pete Davidson.
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