A High and a Low Act by Comedian Aziz Ansari
Criticism of Aziz Ansari's participation in the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia overshadows positive reviews of his film Good Fortune
October 9, 2025
Earlier this week, Aziz Ansari appeared grim as he joined fellow comedian and host Jimmy Kimmel on stage at the El Capitan Centre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Ansari was there to be interviewed for an episode of the TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The apparent cause for Ansari’s visible discomfort soon became evident. A lot of comedians and others are upset at comedians, including Ansari, for accepting money from Saudi Arabia to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, Kimmel said. The Saudi Arabian regime, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has “done a lot of horrible, horrible things,” Kimmel added. He then asked Ansari, “I’m curious as to why you decided to do that.”
Besides Ansari, comedians performing in Riyadh included Americans Nimesh Patel, Jimmy Carr, Dave Chappelle, and Pete Davidson. The organizers reportedly paid the comedians from $375,000 to as much as $1.6 million to perform at the festival, which ends today.
“The money is coming straight from the Crown Prince, who actively executes journalists,” Atsuko Okatsuka, posted on X/Twitter, stating she declined to perform at the festival. The comedians had to “adhere to censorship rules.” She posted a photo of the agreement which participating comedians signed, including agreeing not to perform any material that ridicules the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” or the Saudi Royal family.
The Saudi government is using the festival “to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. The festival dates, from September 26 to October 9, include the seventh anniversary of the “Saudi state-sponsored murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the civil liberties organization noted.
In June, the Saudi government executed Turki al-Jasser, a prominent Saudi writer and journalist, for various “terrorist crimes.” In February 2024, Abdullah al-Shamri, a Saudi political analyst, was executed.
“Everyone performing in Riyadh should use this high-profile opportunity to call for the release of detained Saudi activists,” Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. Those jailed include human rights defender Waleed Abu al-Khair and Manahel al-Otaibi, a women’s rights activist.
In August, disclosing he was scheduled to perform in Riyadh, Tom Dillon said on his podcast, “I am doing this because they are paying me a large sum of money…They bought comedy…Do I have issues with the policies towards freedom of speech? Of course I do, but I believe in my own financial wellbeing.”
Dillon, who was to perform in Riyadh, said he was fired after he joked on his podcast about Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record, according to Human Rights Watch.
Speaking of his participation in the Riyadh festival, Ansari told Kimmel, “You kind of have to make a choice of whether you’re going to isolate or engage. For me, especially being me and looking the way I do and being from a Muslim background, it felt like something I should be a part of. And I hope it pushes things in a positive direction.”
Ansari added that he was donating part of the fees he earned in Riyadh to Reporters Without Border and Human Rights Watch.
Ansari started out in television, including the hit comedy Parks and Recreation (2009). He co-starred in the comedy 30 Minutes or Less (2011). He earned a degree, with a business major, from New York University, 2004. He graduated from the South Carolina Governor’s School for Math and Science in Hartsville. Earlier, he attended Marlboro Academy, a private school in Bennettsville, South Carolina. Ansari was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Fatima, a medical office worker, and Shoukath, a gastroenterologist. His parents are from Tamil Nadu, India.
Ansari lives in London with wife Serena Skov Campbell, who is Danish. Campbell, who earned a PhD in Experimental Physics from King’s College, London, works as a data scientist on PwC’s Investigative Analytics team, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Ansari was on the Kimmel show to talk about Good Fortune, which will be released in the United States next week. The film is Ansari’s directorial debut. He wrote the story and also plays a leading role as Arj, a menial gig delivery worker who makes little money and lives in his car. An angel named Gabriel (played by Keanu Reeves) steps in to force Arj to swap lives with Jeff (Seth Rogen), a wealthy venture capitalist, believing they can each learn something.
Good Fortune covers very topical issues given the expanding role of gig workers, including in white collar jobs, and the rising wealth of venture capitalists and founders of technology companies. The movie has gotten several favorable reviews. The reviewer in Variety, for instance, stated, “it’s still nice to see a celebrity who recognizes what normal folks are going through and uses his platform to address it.”
Yet, today, Variety published a story with the headline: Jimmy Kimmel Grills Aziz Ansari on Riyadh Comedy Performance in Tense Interview. The story noted that other comedians, besides Kimmel, have raised “skepticism about the Riyadh event.”
Variety quotes comedian Marc Maron criticizing colleagues who performed in Riyadh: “I mean, the same guy that’s gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi…” Another comedian David Cross, the publication reported, asked his comedy colleagues who participated in the Saudi festival: “How can any of us take any of you seriously ever again? All of your bitching about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘freedom of speech’ and all that shit? Done. You don’t get to talk about it ever again. By now we’ve all seen the contract you had to sign.”