Just months ago, Bill Burr was the “Free Luigi,” “billionaires are rabid dogs,” iconoclastic king of using comedy to speak truth to power. Now, Burr is the court jester for actual kings, and his non-billionaire fans aren’t laughing.
This past weekend, Burr, along with a stacked lineup of superstar American stand-ups eager to sell their backbone to a foreign power, performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in front of an esteemed audience that included many members of the Saudi Royal Family, who funded the event and who personally cut the checks for the imported artists. Despite how humanitarian groups such as Human Rights Watch urged America’s biggest comedy stars not to participate in the whitewashing of horrific, systematic and intensifying abuses of human rights committed by the Saudi Royals, Burr and his buddies went ahead and let Saudi Arabia use their names, likenesses and integrity to cover up crimes against humanity.
During his first episode of Monday Morning Podcast following his Riyadh performance, Burr praised the Saudi Royal Family for putting on such a special event and writing such a special check to their American meatshields, calling it “one of the top three experiences I’ve ever had” and bragging that, “The Royals loved the show. Everyone was happy.”
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Well, everyone except for Bill’s American fans and the literal slaves owned by his new masters.
Right now, the latest episode of Burr’s podcast has roughly five times as many dislikes as it has likes, and the comment section is even more brutal. Burr’s attempts to reframe his Saudi Arabia reputation laundering as some sort of holy comedic mission meant to bring stand-up comedy to new parts of the globe came off as sanctimonious and insincere, and his praise for the most bloodthirsty billionaires on the planet further pissed off a following that was already out for his own blood.
“‘The royal family liked it,’ Spoken like a true court jester,” one of the top commenters snarked.
Another fan added, “The crown prince makes the Health CEO look like a boy scout billy no balls,” reminding Burr that his very recent rage against insurance CEOs looks completely impotent now that he’s decided billionaires who inflict suffering on millions are great, actually, so long as he gets his cut.
“Ol’ Billy ‘these celebrities, they’ll take any gig if the checks big enough’ Burr back in action,” another user lamented of Burr’s heel-turn on the billionaire issue.
“The problem with having a politically conscious audience is that you can’t perform for slave owners and retain your crowd,” one Monday Morning Podcast listener advised the host. “I wonder if they gave you enough blood money to last the rest of your life?”
However, Burr wasn’t without his defenders. One supportive fan pushed back on the anger against Burr, writing, “Everyone calm down. Bill desperately needed that money. The healthcare costs for treating the permanent lack of a backbone are astronomical.”
Over in the Bill Burr subreddit, even the stand-up legend’s superfans weren’t buying his excuse of “The Saudis are just like us, they even have a McDonald’s!” Right now, the entire front page of the forum is flooded with posts mercilessly mocking O’ Billy Blood Money for trying to play off a complete 180 on his morals as if it was some kind of humanitarian effort that brought him to Riyadh, and it’s causing many long-time fans to quit Monday Morning Podcast for good.
“Won’t be listening. Taking a break from his pod for rest of 2025. Maybe for good. Haven’t missed an episode since 2017,” one fan wrote in the discussion thread for the newest MMP episode.
“I’m gonna try to take a break for the remainder of the year. Something about not confronting the issue and then going on to take the naive route of ‘hyuck they have Starbucks and McDonalds’ really rubs me the wrong way,” another unsubscriber wrote. “I don’t think Bill is that naive and I feel as though he is trying to save face.”
One more lamented, “I’ve been a listener since 2015, and he has evolved so much. People have often said that 2008 Billy would beat up 2020+ Billy. I applaud him for being self-made, but I can’t justify listening to him talk about how awful mill/billionaires are and then do this.”
Burr’s fandom clearly isn’t buying his excuse for being the face of Saudi Arabia’s entertainment rebrand, and while time will tell if the Riyadh Comedy Festival gives the Saudi capital a boost in international tourism, it’s clear that whatever Burr did to improve the country’s reputation came at the expense of his own.
