Comedian Dave Chappelle is getting ripped for telling an audience in Saudi Arabia, where mocking the royal family, Islam, or the government can land you in prison, “It’s easier to talk here than in America.”
“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” Chappelle, a practicing Muslim, declared at the Riyadh Comedy Festival before a crowd of 6,000 people. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”
Chappelle has been viciously critical of Israel, saying in May 2024 in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, “If you are in America, the best thing you can do is to make American Jews feel safe, feel loved and supported so they can know they don’t have to support a country that is committing genocide just to feel safe.” He continued his anti-Israel rhetoric in Riyadh, saying he feared returning to America, because, “They’re going to do something to me so that I can’t say what I want to say,” then adding he would alert his fans by using a code phrase: “It’s got to be something I would never say in practice, so if I actually say it, you’ll know never to listen to anything else I say after that. Here’s the phrase: I stand with Israel.”
Critics didn’t hold back. Author Dumisani Washington slammed Chappelle for his apparent hypocrisy: “A Black, multimillionaire comedian goes to Saudi Arabia, where there are African slaves, and complains about his lack of civil rights in America. Only a Westerner could be so privileged yet so deluded.”
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So, Dave Chappelle, a Black, multimillionaire comedian goes to Saudi Arabia where there are African slaves and complains about his lack of civil rights (freedom of speech) in America.
Only a Westerner could be so privileged yet so deluded to think that an Islamic regime is…
— Dumisani Washington (@DumisaniTemsgen) October 5, 2025
Comedian Tim Young was equally scathing: “If Chappelle believes there’s freer speech in Saudi Arabia than in the U.S., he should do an entire set mocking Muhammad there and see how it goes.”
If Dave Chappelle believes there’s freer speech in Saudi Arabia than the US…
he should do an entire set mocking Muhammad there and see how it goes.
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) October 5, 2025
Others, like commentator Jesús Enrique Rosas, pointed to the life-or-death stakes of dissent in the Kingdom: “Does Chappelle know you can get literally EXECUTED in Saudi Arabia for saying the ‘wrong things’? That oil money must have been SWEET.”
Does Chapelle know you can get literally EXECUTED in Saudi Arabia for saying the 'wrong things'?
That oil money must have been SWEET 🤌 https://t.co/nrb9NduFsr
— Jesús Enrique Rosas – The Body Language Guy (@Knesix) October 4, 2025
And conservative journalist Carmine Sabia nailed the heart of the matter: “I find it interesting that Chappelle, who was paid a fortune to perform in Saudi Arabia… would say there is more free speech there than in the U.S. — a nation that actually gave him a list of things he was not allowed to joke about.”
I find it interesting that Dave Chappelle, who was paid a fortune to perform in Saudi Arabia, and good for him, would say that there is more free speech there than in the United States.
A nation that actually gave him a list of things he was not allowed to make quips about. pic.twitter.com/rZT5pd096V
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) October 5, 2025
Even Bill Maher, not exactly a bastion of right-wing thinking, ridiculed Chappelle on HBO’s “Real Time,” saying,
“It’s not true. Do your hunk on Muhammad, Dave.”
This isn’t Chappelle “punching up.” This is Chappelle indulging in moral relativism at its worst — throwing stones at a country that made him rich, while cozying up to a regime that jails dissidents and executes critics.
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