By Dustin Rowles | News | October 1, 2025In defending his appearance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, Bill Burr took an unexpected tack. Instead, he took the opposite approach, celebrating the fact that the audience in Saudi Arabia is “just like us,” meaning fans of comedy. “It was great to experience that part of the world and to be a part of the first comedy festival over there in Saudi Arabia,” Burr said on his Monday Morning podcast. “You think everybody’s going to be screaming ‘death to America’ and they’re going to have like f***ing machetes and want to like chop my head off, right? Bill Burr is giving the Saudi government exactly what it wanted: a positive portrait of Saudi Arabia.