{"id":2066035,"date":"2025-10-03T06:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T06:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2066035"},"modified":"2025-10-03T06:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T06:41:07","slug":"dave-chappelle-takes-on-free-speech-in-u-s-at-controversial-saudi-comedy-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/dave-chappelle-takes-on-free-speech-in-u-s-at-controversial-saudi-comedy-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Chappelle Takes On Free Speech In U.S. At Controversial Saudi Comedy Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true, but I\u2019m gonna find out,\u201d said Chappelle, who has faced backlash of his own for anti-trans jokes in recent years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He later went on, \u201cIt\u2019s easier to talk here than it is in America.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pete Davidson, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Louis C.K. and Gabriel Iglesias are among other big names who were set to perform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Human rights advocates and groups have ripped those involved in the fest. Human Rights Watch called the event an attempt to whitewash the Saudi government\u2019s \u201cserious rights abuses<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At least one comedian who turned down an invite to perform, Atsuko Okatsuka, revealed that her offer<\/a> outlined \u201ccontent restrictions\u201d that called on comics not to perform material that would degrade Saudi Arabia, the Saudi royal family and any religion, religious tradition or practice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI had to stop a couple times during the show and say, \u2018I\u2019ll be honest with you guys, I cannot fucking believe any of you have any idea who I am,\u2019\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was just this great exchange of energy. They know their reputation. So they were extra friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He continued, \u201cThe royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true, but I\u2019m gonna find out,\u201d said Chappelle, who has faced backlash of his own for anti-trans jokes in recent years. He later went on, \u201cIt\u2019s easier to talk here than it is in America.\u201d Pete Davidson, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Louis C.K. and Gabriel Iglesias are among other big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2066036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[44702,22339,31595,383014,365927],"class_list":["post-2066035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-bill-burr","tag-comedy","tag-dave-chappelle","tag-riyadh","tag-saudi-arabia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Dave-Chappelle-Takes-On-Free-Speech-In-US-At-Controversial.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2066035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2066037,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066035\/revisions\/2066037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2066036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2066035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2066035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2066035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}