'Amoral, evil': vitriolic backlash builds against comics who played Riyadh festival
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It’s interesting that MBS has discovered a sense of humour, though, as the crown prince wasn’t laughing when Masameer County, a South Park meets Family Guy-style satire, was picked up by Netflix and became one of the most popular shows in the region. Instead, its creator, Abdulaziz Almuzaini, was sentenced to a 13-year jail term and a 30-year travel ban for “terrorism and promoting homosexuality”.
Others who have left MBS stony-faced? Fahad Albutairi, known as “Saudi Arabia’s Jerry Seinfeld”, who was allegedly handcuffed, blindfolded and put on a plane to Saudi Arabia when performing in Jordan in 2018. (He was also reported to have been forced to divorce his wife, a women’s rights activist.)
Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was jailed for 20 years for running a parody Twitter account. Tala Safwan, an Egyptian TikTok influencer and prankster was arrested for a joke with “lesbian subtext”. And in 2018 a specific law was introduced to punish, with jail sentences and fines, anybody who produced satire online deemed to be “mocking public order”.
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Pete Davidson has said that there were no restrictions on the material he could perform, a dubious claim given that Atsuko Okatsuka leaked a prospective contract she was sent. The “content restrictions” section detailed anything that “may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule … the Kingdom of Saudi, the Saudi royal family, its legal system … religion”. (Okatsuka declined the offer.)
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/oct/09/backlash-builds-against-comics-who-played-riyadh-comedy-festival
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DEAD. TO. ME.
Every last one of those creeps!
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