Dave Chappelle heading home from Saudi comedy festival crammed inside suitcase after bravely mocking freedom-loving Saudi regime

Comedy legend Dave Chappelle is said to be travelling home from Riyadh in a brand-new “human-sized carry-on,” after what insiders are calling his “bravest gig of his career.”

The American stand-up, lured to the Kingdom by a fee reported to be somewhere between “life-changing” and “suspiciously blood-diamond adjacent,” is believed to have departed squashed inside the most exclusive luggage Saudi money can buy.

Chappelle, who has spent years railing against cancel culture in America, was applauded for finally tackling an even greater threat to free speech: the Saudi government. Witnesses say he began his routine about “freedom-loving leaders who definitely don’t kill and then saw their critics into pieces” before the stage lights dimmed, the PA cut out, and men with very shiny watches politely escorted him into the festival’s VIP departure lounge, a meat grinder behind the venue.

Festival organisers deny anything untoward, insisting all performers left “freely and mostly intact,” though they were curiously vague about whether “intact” includes zippers, handles, and TSA-approved combination locks.

Other comedians, including Kevin Hart, Jimmy Carr, and anyone with a mortgage, were quick to clarify they “absolutely adore Saudi Arabia’s delightfully playful sense of humour” and “it’s ability to laugh at itself”, insisting it would never, ever, get offended by a joke about things like executions, repression, or the awkward way the crown prince laughs at punchlines half a second too late.

As one British comic put it backstage, “In the UK I can be booed off stage, which is painful enough. In Saudi, I can be dragged off stage and stuffed into a bag. Know your market.”

Netflix is already negotiating with Riyadh for the exclusive rights to Chappelle’s final special, tentatively titled Silence Is Golden.