Simply months in the past, Bill Burr was the “Free Luigi,” “billionaires are rabid canines,” iconoclastic king of utilizing comedy to talk fact to energy. Now, Burr is the courtroom jester for precise kings, and his non-billionaire followers aren’t laughing.
This previous weekend, Burr, together with a stacked lineup of famous person American stand-ups wanting to promote their spine to a overseas energy, carried out on the Riyadh Comedy Festival in entrance of an esteemed viewers that included many members of the Saudi Royal Household, who funded the occasion and who personally lower the checks for the imported artists. Regardless of how humanitarian teams similar to Human Rights Watch urged America’s greatest comedy stars to not take part within the whitewashing of horrific, systematic and intensifying abuses of human rights dedicated by the Saudi Royals, Burr and his buddies went forward and let Saudi Arabia use their names, likenesses and integrity to cowl up crimes in opposition to humanity.
Throughout his first episode of Monday Morning Podcast following his Riyadh efficiency, Burr praised the Saudi Royal Family for placing on such a particular occasion and writing such a particular verify to their American meatshields, calling it “one of many high three experiences I’ve ever had” and bragging that, “The Royals beloved the present. Everybody was completely happy.”
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Effectively, everybody aside from Invoice’s American followers and the literal slaves owned by his new masters.
Proper now, the newest episode of Burr’s podcast has roughly 5 instances as many dislikes because it has likes, and the remark part is much more brutal. Burr’s makes an attempt to reframe his Saudi Arabia popularity laundering as some form of holy comedic mission meant to carry stand-up comedy to new components of the globe got here off as sanctimonious and insincere, and his reward for essentially the most bloodthirsty billionaires on the planet additional pissed off a following that was already out for his personal blood.
“‘The royal household favored it,’ Spoken like a real courtroom jester,” one of many high commenters snarked.
One other fan added, “The crown prince makes the Well being CEO appear to be a boy scout billy no balls,” reminding Burr that his very recent rage against insurance CEOs seems to be utterly impotent now that he’s determined billionaires who inflict struggling on hundreds of thousands are nice, truly, as long as he will get his lower.
“Ol’ Billy ‘these celebrities, they’ll take any gig if the checks sufficiently big’ Burr again in motion,” one other person lamented of Burr’s heel-turn on the billionaire difficulty.
“The issue with having a politically aware viewers is that you would be able to’t carry out for slave homeowners and retain your crowd,” one Monday Morning Podcast listener suggested the host. “I’m wondering in the event that they gave you adequate blood cash to final the remainder of your life?”
Nevertheless, Burr wasn’t with out his defenders. One supportive fan pushed again on the anger in opposition to Burr, writing, “Everybody relax. Invoice desperately wanted that cash. The healthcare prices for treating the everlasting lack of a spine are astronomical.”
Over in the Bill Burr subreddit, even the stand-up legend’s superfans weren’t shopping for his excuse of “The Saudis are similar to us, they also have a McDonald’s!” Proper now, your entire entrance web page of the discussion board is flooded with posts mercilessly mocking O’ Billy Blood Cash for attempting to play off a whole 180 on his morals as if it was some form of humanitarian effort that introduced him to Riyadh, and it’s inflicting many long-time followers to give up Monday Morning Podcast for good.
“Received’t be listening. Taking a break from his pod for remainder of 2025. Perhaps for good. Haven’t missed an episode since 2017,” one fan wrote within the dialogue thread for the latest MMP episode.
“I’m gonna attempt to take a break for the rest of the yr. One thing about not confronting the problem after which happening to take the naive route of ‘hyuck they’ve Starbucks and McDonalds’ actually rubs me the improper method,” one other unsubscriber wrote. “I don’t assume Invoice is that naive and I really feel as if he’s attempting to avoid wasting face.”
Yet another lamented, “I’ve been a listener since 2015, and he has developed a lot. Individuals have usually stated that 2008 Billy would beat up 2020+ Billy. I applaud him for being self-made, however I can’t justify listening to him discuss how terrible mill/billionaires are after which do that.”
Burr’s fandom clearly isn’t shopping for his excuse for being the face of Saudi Arabia’s leisure rebrand, and whereas time will inform if the Riyadh Comedy Competition offers the Saudi capital a lift in worldwide tourism, it’s clear that no matter Burr did to enhance the nation’s popularity got here on the expense of his personal.
