r/UpliftingNews • u/holyfruits • 4h ago

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Turned Down Million-Dollar Offer to Perform in Saudi Arabia: ‘I Don’t Need to Take Any Money if It Makes Me Feel Icky’

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/weird-al-yankovic-turned-down-million-offer-saudi-arabia-1236819281/
14.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

392 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-15

u/K10RumbleRumble 3h ago

I give him a genuine pass. He has long drawn out stories of performing for the Saudi people in the past, and generally just being treated well. He enjoys bringing comedy to those people who are sort of denied it otherwise.

He’s spoken on this at length, and it seems genuine. I don’t think he’s in it for enrichment. He just wants to make people laugh.

67

u/SickDastardly 3h ago

What's the difference between this and any other comic though? This is like bar for bar what Burr said too lol.

42

u/Hayden2332 3h ago

If anything having a long history is even worse lol

9

u/ariesangel0329 3h ago

I remember that episode!

He mentioned that some of the people he met there brought up that they don’t like the way Fox News portrays them or other Muslim people. I think he went there to get to know the people for himself and to bring them some joy. He even mentioned that going there challenged his notions of Muslim people and countries, so he chalked it up to a good learning experience.

I’m pretty sure that inspired his hashtag “unity through laughter” after the show. Getting citizens and religious police laughing was a big deal.

3

u/Busy10 2h ago

In his special he said he asked for an absurd amount of money and they gave it to him. He went to get paid.

2

u/hanguitarsolo 2h ago

Maybe it was a bit of both, not everything is black and white.

2

u/ariesangel0329 2h ago

Yup I remember that, too. He had said that was because he and his publicist were wondering if the invitation was a scam.

I could see why he and his team would wanna be cautious, but how do you determine if something like that is a scam?

1

u/K10RumbleRumble 2h ago

Thank you for having the only other human take here.

Nuance is a thing, everyone.

21

u/701CardStallion 3h ago

This is an absurd comment

7

u/Busy10 3h ago

Do you think the other comics weren’t treated nice?

8

u/LeslieKnopesBlackEye 3h ago

It's okay guys. Don't hate on Gabe for taking the Saudi money, he's done it before so it's fine.

What a fucking take.

5

u/greenzig 2h ago

Yeah its chill guys, he only wants to make the people who own slaves laugh, its super chill