The comedian said she’d feel unwelcome at the Saudi Arabian comedy festival due to being a Black queer woman.
ByJaelani Turner-Williams
September 15, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Wanda Sykes told Ziwe she would refuse any payday to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, even if she were offered millions.
- Sykes, who identifies as a lesbian, would feel unsafe performing at the Saudi Arabia festival.
- The Riyadh Comedy Festival ran from September 26 through October 9, 2025, with comedians Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson and Bill Burr in the performance lineup.
Wanda Sykes revealed she’s never accept an invite to perform at the annual Saudi Arabian Riyadh Comedy Festival.
The actress and comedian was a guest on the Sunday (Sept. 13) episode of Ziwe, where the host brought up Sykes declining to perform at the festival in a 2025 interview with Variety. At the time, Riyadh Comedy Festival hosted 50 prominent comedians, including Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Pete Davidson and Louis C.K.
“Did I turn it down? I didn’t even know if I was offered,” Sykes told Ziwe around the 10-minute mark below.
After rejecting multiple hypothetical amounts in the millions, Sykes added, “I’m a Black gay woman. What the hell am I going to…I like my head on my body. It fits.”
In her interview with Variety, Sykes acknowledged that while the festival was probably “a nice paycheck” for her comedy peers, she would feel out of place there.
“I’m a Black gay woman. I have no business there; I wouldn’t feel comfortable with the treatment of the LGBT,” she told the publication. “But then again, I think Jessica [Kirson] went, and said she was gonna talk about being a lesbian. I guess that worked for her. But I wouldn’t.”
Sykes added that it’s “anti-comedy” for festival organizers to reportedly request that comedians not to criticize the Saudi government. “If you complain about cancel culture, but then you go and take money to not say things, I mean,” she said.
In a July interview on TribLive, comedian and artist Weird Al Yankovic revealed that he was offered seven figures to perform at the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival, which he rejected.
“I’m not dissing anybody that took the money because I’m sure everybody that went there got a lot of money,” he said. “I’m sure they had their own reasons and justifications for doing it. But I’m doing enough that I don’t need to take any amount of money if it makes me feel icky, and that kind of did.”
