15 views

Sept. 29, 2025, 1:52 PM EDTBy Angela YangA comedy festival in the capital of Saudi Arabia has become a cultural flash point as major comedians face criticism for accepting seemingly lucrative deals to perform in a country that was virtually impossible to visit until 2019 and a pariah in much of the West for its human rights record.The Riyadh Comedy Festival, which began Friday and runs through Oct. 9, features a variety of big names such as Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Pete Davidson, Andrew Schulz, Jo Koy, Bill Burr, Jessica Kirson, Jimmy Carr and Louis C.K.These comedians, most of them American, are now encountering resistance from some fans, human rights advocates and fellow comics in the industry.Marc Maron, host of the “WTF” podcast, blasted the festival in a recent stand-up clip, joking that it was easy for him to “take the high road on this one” considering he was not invited to perform.“I mean, how do you even promote that?” Maron said. “Like, ‘From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert. Don’t miss it.’ I mean, the same guy that’s gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a f—ing suitcase.”The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment. Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, which announced the festival in July, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“The festival is the largest of its kind globally, bringing together a selection of award-winning comedy stars known for their outstanding performances on international stages and streaming platforms,” the Saudi Press Agency wrote in its announcement for the General Entertainment Authority. “It reflects the efforts to amplify Riyadh’s status as a leading destination for major cultural and artistic events.”Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich home of Islam’s two holiest sites, was for years among the most socially conservative nations on Earth with a morality police enforcing a strict interpretation of Shariah. In recent years under the rule of de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country expanded its cultural and political influence by diversifying its economy and investing in sports, entertainment and tourism to improve its global image. Along with this, the crown prince oversaw a sweeping crackdown on dissent — imprisoning disgruntled royals, women’s rights advocates, and reforming clerics as well as adherents to previously government-sanctioned proponents of strict Wahhabi Islam.Celebrities and influencers have often been criticized for performing in the country or participating in tourism campaigns, and FIFA drew condemnation last year for selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 World Cup.Shane Gillis, who said he was offered an invite, claimed that the organizers “doubled the bag,” or the amount of money offered, after he declined to participate.“It was a significant bag, but I’d already said no,” Gillis said on his podcast. “I took a principled stand.”On TikTok and Instagram, verified accounts that appeared to belong to Turki Al-Sheikh, a royal court adviser who has emerged as a powerful figure in sports and entertainment as part of Saudi Arabia’s push into the global culture industry, posted videos of Chappelle and Hart.In a news release last week, Human Rights Watch wrote that the Saudi government is using the festival “to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations” and called on the performers “to publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists.”The nonprofit watchdog organization noted that some of the events land on the seventh anniversary of the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by intelligence operatives with close ties to the crown prince. The festival also takes place just months after Saudi authorities executed Turki al-Jasser, a journalist known for exposing corruption within the Saudi royal family.“The seventh anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder is no laughing matter,” Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “And comedians receiving hefty sums from Saudi authorities shouldn’t be silent on prohibited topics in Saudi like human rights or free speech.”Other listed performers for the festival include: Sebastian Maniscalco, Maz Jobrani, Tom Segura, Whitney Cummings, Jimeoin, Russell Peters, Andrew Santino, Bobby Lee, Chris Distefano, Mark Normand, Gabriel Iglesias, Hannibal Buress, Sam Morril, Jeff Ross, Omid Djalili, Ali Siddiq, Zarna Garg, Chris Tucker and Ben Hart.These performers did not respond to requests for comment.The Saudi government has been censured by dozens of countries, and in 2024 it was denied a second attempt at scoring a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. In the U.S., relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks have accused the Saudi government of having potential ties to the attack. (A direct link has not been proven.)But it has also made significant inroads with some powerful figures in the West, most notably the Trump family. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner worked with the Saudis to secure a $2 billion investment in his firm and recently partnered with the country’s public investment fund to strike a $55 billion deal to take the video game giant Electronic Arts private. Trump has maintained a close relationship with the crown prince throughout the Saudi royal’s fraught tenure. View this post on Instagram A post shared by TURKI ALALSHIKH تركي آل الشيخ (@turki) The festival and subsequent fallout has also provided a rare window into these events and, in particular, the money and self-censorship often involved.One comedian, Atsuko Okatsuka, posted screenshots to Threads of what she said was her invite to the festival, including a section on “Content Restrictions” that prohibited the artists from performing material that “may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule” the country, its royal family or any religion.“A lot of the ‘you can’t say anything anymore!’ Comedians are doing the festival 😂” Okatsuka wrote. “they had to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they can make.”Mike Birbiglia and Leslie Liao were among the comics who responded to her post, sharing that they had rejected the offer as well.Stavros Halkias similarly revealed in a podcast episode with Distefano, who did agree to perform, that he didn’t take the deal. Distefano told Halkias that while he “didn’t want to do it either,” his fiancée had ultimately urged him to “take that f—ing money.”At least one comedian, however, appears to have changed his mind despite initially agreeing to perform. Nimesh Patel, who was slated to get on stage Sunday, posted a TikTok video over the weekend sharing that he recently canceled his appearance after “having a change of heart.” That video has since become unavailable.“I’ll just do 40 shows that I had not planned on doing here in the perfectly clean, moral, above-everyone-else, United States of America — I’m tired just thinking about it — to make up for the lost bag,” Patel said.Meanwhile, comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon said in an episode of his podcast that he was dropped from the festival for making a joke about the country “having slaves.”“I’m gonna get fired again from people that are not even Saudis. I’m gonna get fired by people who don’t chop hands off. I’m gonna get fired by reasonable people. I’m gonna get fired by people that don’t practice Shariah law,” Dillon said. “This is the most controversial the people who fire me will ever be. Let me relish in this. Let’s take this win.”The Saudi Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation about the cancellation of Patel’s and Dillon’s shows.Angela YangAngela Yang is a culture and trends reporter for NBC News.Natasha Lebedeva contributed.

- Latest News - September 29, 2025

A comedy festival in the capital of Saudi Arabia has become a cultural flash point as major comedians face criticism for accepting seemingly lucrative deals to perform in a country.

TAGS:
18 views

Sept. 29, 2025, 8:00 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 29, 2025, 9:23 AM EDTBy Lawrence HurleyWASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices are scheduled to meet in private on Monday to discuss hundreds of appeals that piled up during their summer recess, including Ghislaine Maxwell’s challenge to her criminal convictions for recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein.The court only takes up a tiny percentage of appeals and will likely announce a list of those it has agreed to hear later in the week. Four of the nine justices have to vote in favor of hearing a case for it to be taken up.A wide array of other cases are also scheduled to be discussed by the justices at what is known as the “long conference.” They include such issues as gun rights, social media company immunity and Covid-19 era vaccine disputes.Monday also marks 20 years since John Roberts became Chief Justice. The new nine-month Supreme Court term, when the court will begin hearing cases, officially starts on Oct. 6. Maxwell’s lawyers say that a deal Epstein made with prosecutors in Florida, in which the then-U.S. attorney agreed not to prosecute potential co-conspirators, should apply to one of the three counts in her case.Newly public emails reveal Epstein and Maxwell planned fertility procedure01:53The legal question is whether the terms of a so-called nonprosecution agreement apply only in the district where it was negotiated or also bind federal prosecutors nationwide. While the agreement with Epstein was made in Florida, Maxwell was prosecuted in New York.The Justice Department has urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case, with Solicitor General D. John Sauer noting, among other things, that under internal policies, the U.S. attorney would have needed to obtain permission from superiors if the agreement were to apply outside his district. There is no evidence that occurred, Sauer added.Epstein’s long history of abuse has surged back into the headlines this year as the Trump administration, in response to pressure from some of President Donald Trump’s own supporters, pledged to release new information about the episode.But the Justice Department and the FBI then said there was no Epstein “client list” or evidence he was blackmailing famous men. The government also said it is clear that Epstein killed himself in 2019, pushing back on unfounded conspiracy theories suggesting he was killed.This prompted a backlash against the Trump administration’s handling of the issue, including from Trump supporters. Trump himself was friendly with Epstein for many years before the two had a falling out. The U.S. attorney who oversaw the nonprosecution agreement with Epstein was Alex Acosta, who served as labor secretary in Trump’s first term.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was previously a personal lawyer for Trump, this summer met with Maxwell for hours in an encounter that, at the time, was shrouded in secrecy.Maxwell was subsequently moved from a low-security prison in Florida to a lower, minimum-security prison camp in Texas. The Bureau of Prisons did not say why she was transferred.The Justice Department later released a full transcript and audio of Blanche’s interview with Maxwell.Maxwell was convicted in 2022 of three counts relating to her role in assisting Epstein in recruiting and grooming his victims, some of whom were as young as 14 years old. She would befriend the victims and then assist in transporting them to Epstein’s residences. She would also sometimes be present when the abuse took place, prosecutors alleged.Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison.Lawrence HurleyLawrence Hurley is a senior Supreme Court reporter for NBC News.

- Latest News - September 29, 2025

The Supreme Court justices will meet Monday to discuss appeals, including Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal to her convictions for recruiting teens for Jeffrey Epstein.

Source link

TAGS:
17 views

Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleSept. 29, 2025, 8:01 AM EDTBy Alexander SmithLONDON — Europe may have defeated the United States in golf’s marquee event. But the verbal abuse hurled at the European players by a baying, boozed-up New York crowd left a sour taste Monday, with calls for tighter policing of American spectators.The scenes at the Ryder Cup were unrecognizable from golf’s genteel archetype, where etiquette demands silence on the tee and applause greets opponents’ drives and putts. Instead the Bethpage Black Course, on Long Island, descended this weekend into a bearpit of personal insults, vulgar chanting and — in one instance — a beer thrown at the wife of star Rory McIlroy.McIlroy, the world No.2, led the jubilant response, including a chant asking President Donald Trump if he had seen the result (he had — and congratulated the Europeans.)The Northern Irishman received the brunt of the abuse, which veered into anti-Irish and homophobic jeers and references to his well-documented marital issues. It wasn’t just the crowd. Heather McMahan, an American warm-up comedian, was forced to apologize and step down after leading a chant of “f— you, Rory!” And there was a heated verbal altercation between Englishman Justin Rose, California native Bryson DeChambeau and their caddies.

- Latest News - September 29, 2025

World No.2 Rory McIlroy received the brunt of the abuse at the Bethpage Black Course, on Long Island, where the 2025 Ryder Cup was held.

Source link

TAGS:
13 views

Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleSept. 29, 2025, 12:13 PM EDTBy Freddie ClaytonLONDON — The royals are in turmoil again.It had all been going so well, with the pomp of President Donald Trump’s state visit and Prince Harry’s tea with King Charles III building a sense of a family steadied after a litany of crises. Then came the fallout. Harry has accused unnamed palace figures of “sabotage” and of planting false accounts of his meeting with his father. Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson face renewed scrutiny over ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, Prince William opened up about what he called “the hardest year” of his life.Together, the stories have jolted the palace narrative from triumph to turbulence — with Harry’s latest clash with the British media at the center of the storm.Prince Harry in Nottingham, England, on Sept. 9.Max Mumby/Indigo / Getty ImagesBritain’s The Sun newspaper claimed last week that Harry’s first meeting with the king in two years was “distinctly formal,” claiming the prince had expressed feeling more like an “official visitor” than a son.Harry’s camp rejected that outright. “Recent reporting of The Duke’s view of the tone of the meeting, is categorically false,” a spokesperson told NBC News, referring to Harry’s title, Duke of Sussex. “The quotes attributed to him are pure invention fed, one can only assume, by sources intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son.”The public feud over the meeting has only deepened tensions at a moment when the family is seeking to project unity, and it could set back attempts to mend the relationship, according to NBC News royal commentator Daisy McAndrew.“I think the king will be really disappointed,” she said.Harry had earlier sounded eager to build on the brief tea, emphasizing his desire to spend more time with his father while defending his tell-all memoir in an interview with Britain’s Guardian newspaper following that trip to the U.K.The accusations from Harry’s camp came just a week after the family showcased its finest pomp and pageantry during Trump’s state visit — a triumph quickly overshadowed by a return to all-too-familiar controversy.President Donald Trump and Britain’s King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Sept. 17.Kirsty Wigglesworth / AFP – Getty ImagesWhile Trump’s trip was only briefly marred by the Epstein scandal, the subject was soon back on newspaper front pages with new royal revelations.The king has instructed Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, the Duke and Duchess of York, that they will not be welcome at the royal Christmas, according to weekend reports in Britain’s Telegraph and Sunday Times newspapers that cited multiple sources.Buckingham Palace did not respond to requests for comment on the report and on the statement from Harry’s spokesperson.That comes after Ferguson was dropped as a patron by a number of charities following a newly surfaced email that revealed she had referred to Epstein as a “supreme friend,” despite the disgraced financier’s conviction on sex offenses. A spokesperson for the duchess said the email was sent to counter a threat Epstein had made to sue her and accuse her of defamation.The disclosure reignited scrutiny of royal ties to Epstein, long centered on Andrew.The palace will hope, McAndrew said, that something else will “come along to take the attention away.”“The problem with Andrew is he’s always grabbing the attention back,” she said.While at odds with itself in recent years, the royal family has also been buffeted by external crises.William described 2024 as the most challenging year of his life in comments that aired Sunday — a period that saw both his wife, Kate, the Princess of Wales, and his father undergo cancer treatment.“I’d say 2024 was the hardest year I’ve ever had,” he said, speaking to “Schitt’s Creek” star Eugene Levy on his show “The Reluctant Traveler.” William, the heir to the throne, added: “Life is said to test us as well, and being able to overcome that is what makes us who we are.”Freddie ClaytonFreddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London. 

- Latest News - September 29, 2025

Prince Harry has accused palace figures of “sabotage” after his tea with his father, while Prince Andrew faces new scrutiny over ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Source link

TAGS: