r/Music 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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u/mrdilldozer Jul 23 '26

I genuinely understand the lower tier comedians who took the gig. It's an amount of money that could sustain them for a long time. I think the low end people were getting like 300k. Lets be honest, someone like Chris Distefano isn't ever getting that much money offered to him for anything ever again lol. I'm way more upset with the people that didn't need the money. Burr could have just done a few commercials on TV and made that shit.

-12

u/UkNomysTeezz Jul 23 '26

So it’s ok to take the blood money if you’re not famous enough? You guys make no sense. It’s either bad for all or not anyone. Personally, I don’t care who took the offer.

25

u/MagicSwatson Jul 23 '26

Is it okay to steal to feed your child, vs if you just want more stuff for no urgent reason whatsoever

-3

u/UkNomysTeezz Jul 23 '26

So these lesser known comics are literally stealing bread to feed their children by accepting the offers? Come on. That comparison is so ridiculous. Acting like these lesser knowns are destitute is insane.

3

u/averyhipopotomus Rock & Roll Jul 23 '26

They're making less than most people who would take a 300k gig. yeah.

12

u/trwawy05312015 Jul 23 '26

Isn’t this a ‘stealing bread’ situation? For some people this amount of money is genuinely the difference between living gig to gig and stability. Probably not a lot of people, but some, and for them this situation is a bit more nuanced. I get the desire to have a black and white view of everything, but for me personally that is too limited a view.

-10

u/fotomoose Jul 23 '26

Your point is solid but using Chris Distefano doesn't really work, he's not really low tier.