Michelle Wolf revealed Tuesday that she ultimately declined Saudi Arabia’s invitation to perform at its Riyadh Comedy Festival — but that didn’t stop the stand-up comic from sharing a series of jokes that would’ve gotten her “murdered by the government” if she told them onstage there.
“They asked me to do it, and I would’ve debated over doing it, but I had to say no because it’s supposed to be, like, five days after I’m having a baby,” Wolf said during an Aug. 25 set first published on her YouTube page Tuesday. “So I had to say no. But now I keep thinking of all these jokes I would’ve told if I had gone.”
She added that she “definitely would’ve been Khashoggi’d — and by that I mean murdered by the government” (a nod to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul). “But for some reason without even trying, I just keep thinking of all these jokes I would’ve told in Saudi.
“It certainly would’ve been my last ever performance, I think,” she admitted.
Wolf went on to tell several quick one-liners: “I would’ve started with, ‘Sorry I’m late — I drove here.’”
“It’s nice to be in a place where women still have a leg up on gay men — or, I don’t know, whatever body part they’re cutting off,” she quipped.
And her third and final one for the Aug. 25 set: “We have this phrase in America, You’re only a stone’s throw away, which means you’re close,” she said. “I don’t think it means the same thing here. I think it’s more like, ‘You’re only a stone’s throw away from learning that lesson.’”
The video shared Tuesday, embedded below, then cuts to other sets from September, where Wolf continued to try out some Saudi-ready material during several “Thought Box LIVE!” performances. Again considering the hypothetical of actually telling them at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, Wolf said, “I think I would’ve had to get airlifted out immediately.”
She especially zeroed in on the Saudi government’s supposed involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“This festival is sponsored by the Saudi government, so if my set doesn’t go well, if I crash and burn, you can just call me Flight 93,” she joked, spurring groans from the audience. “That’s really good! Why are you groaning? Are you groaning because a bunch of people died? That’s fair.”
In another she said, “As fun and as easy as it is to poke at Saudi, let’s not pretend America is perfect. Yeah, so maybe Saudi financed 9/11 — what did America do in response? Attack a different country that has less oil and even less weapons of mass destruction. If Saudi was acting as the bank for 9/11, we all know America thinks banks are too big to fail — but the Iraqi people are just the right size.”
Wolf also joked about the massive sums of money many of the participating comics were offered to perform during the festival. She said that they offered her “a good amount of money,” but that when she heard what they were offering the male comedians, “if you had seen my face when I found out, you would’ve wished we still had to cover our entire heads.”
Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival sparked outrage last week, with many comedians criticizing the high-profile event and Human Rights Watch condemning the festival while urging performers like Pete Davidson and Bill Burr to “publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists and human rights activists.”
David Cross said on Monday that the participating comedians — a list that also included Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K., along with about 50 others — can never be taken seriously again, “unless it’s complaining that we don’t support enough torture and mass executions of journalists and LGBQT peace activists here in the states, or that we don’t terrorize enough Americans by flying planes into our buildings.”
Burr, meanwhile, defended the decision to perform on the opening night for the fest Friday, saying on his podcast that he thinks participating is “going to lead to a lot of positive things.”
“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,” he said. “The royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled. The comedians that I’ve been talking to are saying, ‘Dude, you can feel [the audience] wanted it. They want to see real stand-up comedy.’ It was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely top three experiences I’ve had.”
