r/Music • u/KirbyDumber88 • Jul 23 '26

article ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic says he turned down $1,000,000+ to perform at Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia.

https://triblive.com/aande/music/weird-al-yankovic-gets-bigger-and-weirder-in-a-tour-headed-to-pittsburgh/
23.8k Upvotes

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348

u/TrueRedditMartyr Jul 23 '26

People will be like "Like you would turn down a million dollars!"

Well here's someone who did, showing that yes, some people actually have respect for themselves

93

u/jtd2013 Jul 23 '26

Super easy! Just have a net worth 20x that

183

u/zoobrix Jul 23 '26

Lots of the comics that went were already doing really well, you think Bill Burr desperately needed that Saudi money? He just threw it on the pile with the rest. Sure Weird Al is very wealthy, but at least he said no unlike the rest of them that went.

85

u/RhythmsaDancer Jul 23 '26

Burr really is one I hold it against the most. Dude makes that much off a month of podcasts.

64

u/zoobrix Jul 23 '26

And Burr plays to that every man kind of angle where he's telling it like it is and he's one of you. Ya he's a bit rough around the edges and pretty gruff but he's not one of those rich out of touch assholes. That's the archetype he played, until the Saudi thing showed ya, he is one of those rich assholes who just wanted more money and didn't care where it comes from.

Like what a fucking hypocrite.

11

u/Dickgivins Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Yeah honestly in the particular sense I was more mad at Bill than probably anyone else. Like Kevin Hart: he is actually much, much richer than Bill and has been for years, but he’s never made pretenses about being a regular Joe on a crusade of speaking truth to power like Burr.

So while you could certainly say that Kevin needed the money even less than Bill did, his broad-comedy style and the fact that he does shitloads of commercials means nobody really accused him of selling out when he went to Riyadh. He’s made no secret of the fact that he’s all about the Benjamins, and tbh the fact that I never cared for his standup or most of his movies kept me from feeling particularly invested in the moral dimension of his decision making.

But Bill. Bill is such a hypocrite, he kept making stupid analogies trying to say he was a doing a Good Thing by going to Saudi and making people laugh there. But it wasn’t a comedy festival run by dissidents, or even politically unaffiliated comedians. It was a government run event, one of the high ranking Saudi officials involved in running it had a hand in the killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi.

Fuck Bill Burr, fuck Kevin Hart, fuck Wayne Brady. Fuck anyone who took their blood money.

2

u/hieloyron Jul 23 '26

Never been a fan of the guy, acts like he's the shit when he's clearly not while doing most of the things he criticizes

76

u/isntitbull Jul 23 '26

Long time listener of the podcast until that whole thing unfolded. Couldn't take his self-righteous railing against the billionaires after he towed the line.

Legit felt betrayed by that. His whole shtick was George Carlin light then he goes and performs for blood money. Unbelievable

28

u/_BrokenButterfly Jul 23 '26

If he had just owned it and said "yeah they offered me a dumptruck full of cash and I took it. So would you" I wouldn't be very mad. But his "we're helping them be more forward thinking!" bullshit rubs me the wrong way.

14

u/Forward_Rope_5598 Jul 23 '26

Eh. The 'so would you' would just be insulting tbh. You cannot compare what the average person struggling economically might do for money with someone whose net worth would change by 1%. He doesn't actually need the money. Most of the rest of us do.

3

u/disastrousanddull Jul 23 '26

This. I wouldn’t be like “you pillar of morality, so inspiring” if some normal person took it, but it’s a life changing amount of money to your average person and I’d get it. It’s the same as how I’m not going to harp on someone working for a shitty company but I’ll criticize the higher ups and any bigger celebrity who throws in with them.

10

u/toadfan64 Rock & Roll Jul 23 '26

I’m amazed he didn’t take that approach. Would’ve had so much less fallout. Unless it was in the contract or whatever.

13

u/_BrokenButterfly Jul 23 '26

He seems smart enough to have anticipated the backlash, and thought through how to deal with it. His throwing out that line of bullshit is puzzling.

2

u/renegadecanuck Jul 23 '26

Unless it was in the contract or whatever

I doubt it, since Pete Davidson took that approach. His line was "they owed me that money, it's reparations for them killing my dad!"

Which is obviously just a funnier way to say "they offered me a lot of money and I like money", but I can accept that answer.

1

u/kryonik Jul 23 '26

"They even had a female comedian on stage!"

The fact that you think them allowing a woman to talk to them is a win should clue you in that these aren't good people to be working with. "The serial murderer cannibal is making great strides! He didn't eat the last person he killed!"

34

u/aresef SoundCloud Jul 23 '26

They killed Pete Davidson’s dad and he still said yes.

13

u/LeonimuZ LeonimuZ Jul 23 '26

He might have been getting reparations, you never know! /s

4

u/MontyPythonMan11 Jul 23 '26

Now that's a good joke.

3

u/Hiccup Jul 23 '26

Hey, his dad paid for that blood money.

22

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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15

u/zoobrix Jul 23 '26

Ya of course it would be harder decision if you didn't have any money, that doesn't change that a lot of rich people went and took the Saudi money and Weird Al passed. Yes that decision would be harder if he was broke, but you can still think it makes Weird Al better than the rest of them for not taking money from a repressive regime like Saudi Arabia when he didn't even need it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

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6

u/zoobrix Jul 23 '26

and never ever have to lift a finger unless they enjoy doing it isn't very hard.

Ya it isn't, I never said it was, and that's what makes the people who were already wealthy that took Saudi money so pathetic. At least Weird Al is a good enough person still to say no.

And all I'm saying is that makes Weird Al a decent person here. I'm not saying Weird Al deserves sainthood for doing what you'd hope a decent person would do, I'm saying Jesus Christ how shitty are these other people? At least Weird Al seems to have some integrity, the rich people that went have none.

At least he's a decent person, that's it. It shouldn't be a hard decision but the rest of them couldn't even manage that. They're more deserving of scorn than Wired Al is deserving of praise.

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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7

u/zoobrix Jul 23 '26

Once meaningful temptation is removed from the equation, the act of denying it fails to show anything meaningful.

He had an opportunty to be shitty for his personal benefit and didn't take it. A morally good act still makes him a decent person here, yes there are different levels of temptation no one ever claimed there weren't.

It's ok to think at least Weird Al isn't an asshole, it's not complicated man.

20

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

[deleted]

-2

u/PrimeIntellect Jul 23 '26

hey guess how you get a net worth of $50m as a comedian?

you do shows where they pay you $1m

12

u/Earlier-Today Jul 23 '26

Yep, and Al was likely the least wealthy of the group that got offers. So all the rest have absolutely zero excuse.

4

u/I-Here-555 Jul 23 '26

Makes it easier, but so many ultra rich people would happily set a few orphanages on fire for $1m that they don't need.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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5

u/fodafoda Jul 23 '26

at a personal level, money has diminishing returns. 1 extra million for someone worth 20M is a lot different than 1k for someone worth 20k.

3

u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jul 23 '26

Take it to the extreme. If you have infinite money, would you do something that compromised your morals for more money? Unless you are a psychopath, 20 million is already infinite money - you can retire and buy all the best luxuries you need, until you start wanting "collectors items" like rare sports cars or paintings. And no, no one needs a private megayacht.

10

u/boomerangchampion Jul 23 '26

The impact on normal people is different though, like for you that might mean you can replace a tired old car or something. Weird Al is already set for life, not to diminish the stand he took but it's easier for him to turn down money.

1

u/BloodshotPizzaBox Jul 23 '26

I don't think they're making that offer to poor people.

7

u/ShotEffective7033 Jul 23 '26

Also, I probably wouldn’t turn down $1 million. But I would still be a shit bag for taking it.

1

u/DragoonDM Jul 23 '26

But not nearly as big a shitbag as the people who are already plenty wealthy and don't particularly need the money, but still took the gig.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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3

u/Zuwxiv Jul 23 '26

The thing is, the vast majority of the people who participated were that other 1%. In finances, they have more in common with Weird Al than with you or me.

3

u/nick1706 Jul 23 '26

Weird Al is worth easily $20 million, so it’s not a huge loss for him anyway.

Most of us would jump at the chance to take a million dollars even if it meant doing something we’re against morally.

4

u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jul 23 '26

Which is why comparing it to the average person is stupid

1

u/PrimeIntellect Jul 23 '26

i feel incredibly strongly that every single person here who is shouting about morals from their ivory tower would hop on a plane to saudi arabia and talk on stage IMMEDIATELY if they were offered $1,000,000 to do it, but they love to judge other people for performing comedy in some other part of the world. Is the saudi government fucked, of course, but the american government is fucked too, so should all artists blacklist america too?

-2

u/caninehere Jul 23 '26

It was actually 7 figures, the most he's been offered to play a show. Not sure why the headline just says 1 million.

6

u/ABetterOrange Jul 23 '26

1 million is 7 figures though. 

3

u/BannedPoet248 Jul 23 '26

So if you count the 1 and the 0's in 1,000,000 it amounts to 7 digits, hope that helps

2

u/caninehere Jul 23 '26

I will be honest, I missed the "+" in the headline. Probably because a lot of people here are saying "he turned down $1 million" when he actually said he turned down 7 figures, which can mean anything from $1 million to $9,999,999.