David Cross recently eviscerated fellow comics playing the starry Riyadh Comedy Festival — including big names like Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Bill Burr, Kevin Hart and Whitney Cummings — but Pete Davidson defended the move.
Cross posted on his site last week about the Saudi Arabian fest being billed as “the world’s largest comedy festival” — “I am disgusted, and deeply disappointed in this whole gross thing… That people I admire, with unarguable talent, would condone this totalitarian fiefdom for… what, a fourth house? A boat? More sneakers?”
He added: “These are some of my HEROES! Now look, some of you folks don’t stand for anything so you don’t have any credibility to lose, but my god, Dave and Louie and Bill, and Jim [Carr]? Clearly you guys don’t give a s – – t about what the rest of us think, but how can any of us take any of you seriously ever again? All of your bitching about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘freedom of speech’ and all that s – – t? Done. You don’t get to talk about it ever again. By now we’ve all seen the contract you had to sign. You’re performing for literally, the most oppressive regime on Earth… This is truly the definition of ‘blood money’… your hypocrisy will never not be noted.”
Davidson’s dad, NYC firefighter Scott Davidson, was killed in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
But during a Sept. 23 appearance on Theo Von’s podcast, when Von asked about the backlash, (but before Cross went off) Davidson said: “I’ve heard there’s subreddits of like, ‘I think all these people are in bed with that.’ I just, you know, I get the routing, and then I see the number, and I go, ‘I’ll go.’” (Presumably meaning the size of the check.)
He added, “I’ve been getting a little bit of flak just because my dad died [in] 9/11. So they’re like,‘How could you possibly go there?’”
Podcaster Marc Maron said of the fest, “I mean, how do you even promote that? You know, like, ‘From the folks that brought you 9/11. Two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss it!’”
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