The Comedians Crazy For Saudi Cash

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Hello and welcome to the Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina High.

And me, Richard Osman.

Hello, Marina.

Hello, Richard.

How are you?

Yeah, and I'm very well.

Have you had a nice week?

I have had a nice week.

I had a very busy week.

But I have actually noticed, Richard, that despite that busyness, the Thursday Murder Club movie is number one in the whole world.

Listen,

let's not

go into that.

Can you talk a little bit about it later?

Teeny bit, teeny bit.

Yeah, I can talk about how the numbers work and what you need to do.

Your happy space.

Yes, yeah, exactly.

We'll take you to your happy place with that

later.

No, but

it's lovely.

But yeah, we can talk about that at the end, maybe.

Because we've got more interesting things to talk about, I think.

Starting with something I think is very interesting, which I'm not sure that many people know about.

And I think that the people involved with it would love to keep it that way.

We're talking about the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which is a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia, where...

I have to say, I have never seen a lineup of comedians like this.

It's an unbelievable bill.

So let's talk about that.

We're going to talk about Travis Kelsey.

Who is he?

Where did he come from?

Perhaps who are the greatest power couple in the history of entertainment?

And are Taylor and Travis about to take that throne?

And we're also going to talk about the incredible financial afterlife of Michael Jackson.

You know, there's

a musical that's playing very well, and there's also a movie coming, which has been marred in particular difficulties.

But we can talk about all of that because that one's an interesting one.

Yeah, now, talking about people making money that perhaps they shouldn't be, the Riea Comedy Festival.

The Riyadh Comedy Festival runs from the 26th of September to October the 9th.

Tickets still available?

Tickets still,

I assume.

Tickets still available.

Now, the lineup, as I say, is pretty unbelievable.

There are more than 50 top comedians.

It has billed itself as the world's biggest comedy festival, whatever biggest means as a metric, but it may be unbelievable.

I certainly think it's the world's most lucrative comedy festival.

Oh, yeah.

I think Edinburgh or Montreal might both go.

I think maybe we have more comics.

Yeah, it's definitely the most lucrative.

Okay.

The bill

includes, but is not limited to Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Jimmy Carr, Pete Davidson, Chris Tucker, Russell Peters, Trevor Noah, Hannibal Burrez, Bill Burr, Nimesh Patel, Ahmed Jalili, Tom Segura, Aziz Ansari, Louis C.K., Andrew Schultz.

There are a couple of chicks who've made it out there.

Whitney Cummings.

Well, they haven't made it out yet.

Yeah, Jessica Kerson.

There's a couple.

You'll laugh your head off, won't you, Richard?

You will laugh your head off.

I think as a little bit of background, we should say that we talked a lot about Saudi investment in things.

This is part of the Saudi push for sort of cultural expansion.

And

we've got a vision 2030 strategy, it's called.

We talked about the Red Sea Film Festival, which is now in its somethingth year and is attracting bigger and bigger people every year.

Reportedly, Bob Iger turned down Saudi as the location for the next Disney park, which is now going to be in Abu Dhabi.

But, you know, they were obviously in that mix.

And the Riyadh Season Festival, it's got comedy, sport, culture, hospitality, all of those things.

Anyway, all of this stuff takes place in a place called, and the comedy festival is going to take place in a place in Riyadh called Boulevard City.

In such generic name, oh no, they have.

It's like a sort of big entertainment district, and it's got multiple theatres, stages, like outsider auditoriums, and a central thing called Square, which is inspired by Times Square.

I mean, in such a more generic name.

What do we think about people taking that Saudi money?

It's not completely cut and dried.

It's funny, isn't it, Richard?

I don't think it is.

I am not.

I think actually just broadening it out from that very, very specific geographical region.

I'm not a huge fan of comedians taking paid-for gigs from governments, even autocracies, you know, even autocracies.

Here's my absolute starting point with this.

If you go over to Saudi Arabia, if you, people do corporates, all sorts of things all the time.

The money's right right and you're comfortable with who that corporate is, go and do it.

And an awful lot of people on this list are not hand-ringy.

They are not the sort of people who said, oh, I won't do this, I won't do that.

They are people who have always sort of done anything

for the highest price.

Okay, which

if that's who you are, that's who you are.

I think that the money that's being paid for it and the potential audience size there is over there, you have to accept that you are not being paid for punters coming through the door.

You're not being paid for a promoter to make money.

So you are you are being paid by the Saudi government.

Yes.

I think you have to, there's no,

again, no judgment, but if you're going over there, the reason you're being paid that much money is to promote

it.

Not because you're going to bring in the ticket sales, you're worth it for something else.

Exactly.

So you're there to do PR for the Saudi government.

We can argue about whether that's a good thing to be taking money for or not, but I think that has to be the starting point.

And a lot of the comedians have come out and spoken about why they're doing it.

Yeah, because they all have they all either have podcasts or go on podcasts the whole time to talk about it, yeah.

But it hasn't bubbled through, I don't think, to the mainstream at all.

And I don't think people really know this is particularly happening.

But if you, you know, listen to lots of these kind of humor podcasts, or you listen, some of them have talked about them on really big podcasts, but they're keeping it relatively quiet, I think it's fair to say, for various reasons.

If I can talk about the general thinking over the comedians who are doing it, Jim Jeffries, who's huge in the States, he has said, because, of course, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is the real sort of lightning rod for Saudi human rights abuses.

This is the journalist who was murdered in 2018, dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Jim Jeffery says, people have been going, oh, how dare you go over there after, oh, they killed a reporter.

That was the big one.

There's been a reporter who they killed.

You don't think our government kills people?

Oh, I think Jeffrey Epstein was bumped off.

You know what I mean?

He said, you know, you can be angry.

about how they treat their people, how they treat that reporter.

You can be angry at golfers that live golf.

But we are basically freedom of speech machines being sent over there.

They have not at one stage asked to see our material, bracket citation needed.

They haven't asked.

So he is a freedom of speech machine.

He talks so much about they've got all these edgy people, isn't it?

Chris DiStefano, who's playing, he justified it as well.

He said he was, he's talking to another comic, who said he wasn't going to do it.

And DiStefano says, well, I didn't want to do it either.

I was contemplating.

I was like, maybe not.

And then Jasmine, his wife, was like, well, we're getting married.

We've got the house.

Who knows?

We'll probably sell it again.

I was like, I can't do it.

And then she was like, you're going to take the fucking money.

No mention of Jamal Khasogi at any point in that conversation.

Well, Bill Burr has done a lot of routines about people working, ordinary, normal people working for crappy corporations and saying, you don't have to, you don't have to do this.

I mean, this seems very much that you don't have to for Bill Burr as well.

To engage with the first point.

Yes.

Last year, I ended up having dinner in one of New York's sort of most sort of exclusive gentlemen's clubs with a very much

older gentleman.

With a much older...

Long story short, we are now married.

With a much older...

Is this Prince Henry?

No, it's not.

It's a much older American guy,

very eminent.

And it was really interesting being in this club in the first place because he was saying to me, David Cameron was still just at that moment foreign secretary.

And he was saying, oh, last week, you know, your foreign secretary, he was in here with these people from the Chinese government government in this tiny little room and I was like I see I say it's interesting all the things that go on in gentlemen's clubs isn't it anyway and he was we ended up talking about Saudi Arabia and he said at a certain point oh you know it's it's such a shame really what's happened and I said oh my god I know you chop up one journalist and then

and then he just looked at me and he raised his eyebrow and I said

oh I see you're saying we do things like that or we do we just don't but we just don't get we just don't get caught or we're less amateur or whatever and then he just raised the eyebrow again.

And I thought, well, given who you are, you would most certainly know about this.

But that is the Jim Jefferies' point.

And it's the point of lots of these people, which is if you live in any sort of commercial world, then you are doing a deal with the devil almost all the time.

And just because people are jumping on one particular issue doesn't mean that...

They're not being hypocrites.

If you want to read all of these, by the way, there's a really good newsletter called Humorism that is run by a guy called Seth Simons.

And it's sort of about the, I don't want to say it's the dark side of the comedy business, but it is.

And he's collated all of what people have been saying about the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

And then Tim Dylan was talking, saying, This is a good one.

He said, Oh, my agent calls me, says, I don't know if we should do this because this is an endorsement of Saudi Arabia.

And I said, Well, okay, but let's be frank.

I'm living in a country right now that is endorsing another country's behavior that I don't agree with.

I mean, all entertainment money is effing blood money one way or another.

Discuss.

I mean, no, obviously, not all entertainment.

No, money is bloody money.

It's not all blood money.

A lot of it is.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I've heard what they say about Hazard Games, but you can't do it today.

I don't know how they're funding the new Banamori, but certainly they're being opaque about it.

There's a lot of countercultural comedians who I think have been,

especially in America, who've been told for the last five, ten years, you can't do this, you can't say this.

The stuff, all the cliché stuff of you can't say anything in comedy anymore.

And they have absolutely quite rightly said, you can say whatever you like in comedy.

And I do.

You know, you choose your moments, you judge your audience, so I say whatever I like.

But having been lectured to for such a long time and having been on the right side of some of those arguments and the wrong side of some of those arguments, actually,

if you are presented with a thing like this, you do kind of go, ah, but you know, I always do.

I always do the thing that's not expected of me.

I always do.

I always do the counterintuitive thing.

You know, because I believe in free speech, we should be allowed to do what we want.

You can't put me in a box.

I'll just climb out of that box.

You can't put me in a box.

And some of those comedians will definitely believe that for sure for some of them it's quite convenient i mean listen they've got a call they're going to go somewhere for 48 hours and pay paid an awful lot of money i mean an awful lot of money and so if you can find even the slightest justification as to why that might be okay which is human rights are abused everywhere i think it's important that i spread freedom of speech to a new group of people then then you do then that's what you do but

i have a slight sidebar on this the idea of cultural boycotts because a lot of people will say i don't agree with cultural boycotts i mean i always find the person who's saying i don't agree with cultural boycotts is someone like sting who's just been paid like a million dollars to appear for some i remember he he did one act of sting for the uh former uzbek dictator's daughter that sounds like a gilbert and sullen song the former

the former uzbek dictator's daughter yeah if you could fit in funny rhymes for boiling your enemies child slave armies killing your own people if they protest then 100 it's a gilbert and sullen song the second one was the second one

but sting i remember saying when people found out that he'd done it,

he said, oh, you know, I don't believe in cultural boycotts.

It's like, okay.

But I want to spread my artistic ideas.

It's like, yes, but I don't think within the palace you are spreading your artistic ideas.

And they had one sort of publicly open concert, and I think that the ticket price was something like 45 times the average as their monthly salary.

So you are still involved in a cultural boycott.

And there will be a lot of these comedians who say, oh, but I'm bringing my ideas to, can I just say it again, the Boulevard?

Yes.

maybe doing a gig in square wow you're playing square you're playing square yeah

you're heard of the sphere but this sounds so much better you sold that place out or you haven't sold it out oh no one no one sold any of these out okay yeah Louis C.K.

and Jimmy Carr are doing a joint gig that's interesting yeah

a lot going on there a lot going on there a lot going on there so I suppose you're saying is comedy the front line of the fight for liberty is it

by the way or is it full of mercenaries or is it somewhere do you know what is interestingly both those things yeah I think it's definitely full of mercenaries Yeah.

But of course it is, but there isn't a branch of show business that isn't.

It's all blood, money, Rochester.

It's all blood money.

But it is full of people who are dancing on the tightrope of what you're allowed to say.

You know,

either you're charming and funny and you're saying something unusual or you are sort of trying to push an envelope.

So it's understandable that culturally this is a group of people who believe their opinions perhaps to have some impact and some importance.

But they're not held back by self-doubt,

although they tell you they are all the time.

I would say, to give me, give an example, there was a really big Saudi, the biggest Saudi comic, and there will be Saudi comics on this bill, by the way, but the biggest Saudi comic for a long time, and people used to call him the Jerry Seinfeld of Saudi Arabia or something, was called Fahad al-Batari.

He was filling stadiums, he was a groundbreaker, he went over to LA, he did a bit of work, he moved to Dubai.

But he was married to one of those women's rights activists who was arrested for driving.

And she managed to sort of get away.

But then they were both grabbed, her in UAE, I think, and him in Jordan.

And they were taken back to Saudi.

She was imprisoned.

She was tortured.

She had electric shocks, beating, waterboarding.

And she's finally released in 2021.

And she's still under a travel ban.

Okay.

And two months ago in Saudi Arabia, they executed a journalist for a tweet.

It was called Turkey Al Jassa.

He had two social media accounts, one called Turkey Al-Jassa and another sort of anonymous one, which was apparently dangerously satirical.

So to me, this is like a real tale of two cities.

Like either you're in the Riyadh where you get grabbed and executed and tortured and all of those things.

Or you're in the boulevard.

This kind of outward facing...

But let's not kid ourselves that you're doing it for anything.

I think they're all doing it for the money.

I'll be really honest with you.

I would love all of them, all of them, to say how much they're being paid.

Because they, hey, listen, these guys are what do they say free speech machine

but also if you're jim jefferies and you are a free speech machine and genuinely you know i think he has an argument that says that but if you are a free speech machine here is the perfect forum the perfect set the perfect place the perfect material take what uh marina just said talk about that talk about that not only on stage but talk about that with your handlers talk about that with the people who are taking you to your car and then taking you to the prescribed bar just talk to them if you are a free speech machine this is amazing you're a machine this is perfect you know no other way other than to promote free speech that's the thing you're a machine you get turned on and that's what you do that's how you run well i agree this is the absolute perfect test of being a free speech machine it's the perfect test for a lot of those comics of saying you say that you say the unsayable you say that you're trying to change people's minds and people's views here we go i mean If you are at the forefront of the culture wars, if you are at the forefront of where we're going next, here is the perfect opportunity to absolutely put a flag in.

Show your true colour, show exactly who you are and what it is that you do.

There has never been a better time or a better place to do it.

They are not going to kill you.

You could all do it.

It could be like a bake-off of the best set on Saudi human rights abuses.

You could all do it and make it funny, you know, because you're brilliant.

You're the very top of your game.

And by the way, there are people on this bill who I think are doing it for the right reasons.

So I disagree with you slightly.

They're all doing it for money, of course they are.

But there there are people who genuinely believe that going to Saudi Arabia, that engaging in Saudi culture, this country is not going to become geopolitically any less important anytime soon.

So there are strong arguments.

There will be people in NGOs, there will be people in government who say it's really good to go and engage with Saudi Arabia.

It's a really important place to, you know, unlike the guy I was talking to, it's such a shame if you don't.

Yes.

It's such a shame.

They had a snooker tournament there last year and there was nobody watching anything.

And that's the point where, you know, they go and they play snooker in China and it's absolutely rammed so if you are doing that you do and i'll say this to the comics as well listen if it's absolutely full of just normal saudis really laughing men and women a really mixed crowd and it may well be by the way come back and tell us if it is great you have done your job but also be aware that it has been partially staged for you yeah but be aware if it's not the sellout you're hoping be aware of who it is that you are working for and just run that through the machine i would say yeah i think it's really i i think it's really interesting.

And what I find most interesting is it has had so little coverage in anything that would sort of resemble mainstream publications.

And I think that's because people are trying to keep it under the radar.

I want every coffin spit from this thing, though.

I would read a massive oral history about it 15 seconds after it's happened.

So I hope everything is being documented and smuggled out one way or another.

Yeah, Jimmy Carr, if you're listening, please just write it all down.

Now, Jimmy is someone who thinks very deeply about things.

He will have a justification for why he's doing it.

But I would love to read just from the moment the plane touches down to the moment they leave with a suitcase full of cash.

Yeah, I would like to read every single thing.

A very, very long read.

Every conversation that is had.

Yeah.

And I want a full rundown of what the boulevard and square look like.

And

I want to see a full transcript of the acts just to see quite how freedom of speechy they are.

And footage of the crowds, not Will Smith style, which has been making me laugh all week.

Will Smith's AI concert for us.

Oh my goodness, that is.

It's unbelievable.

If you haven't seen it, you've got this.

his was it his it's just

yeah it doesn't necessarily have the immediate vibes of scarborough but if you look at the footage yeah they've composited a lot of stuff together he is high-fiving an awful lot of seven and three fingered people in that uh ai crowd isn't he it's amazing i i really want to know more about that as well but anyway that's the sidebar yeah the riyadh comedy festival i mean listen edinburgh small yeah you know perhaps in 40 years time this will be the thing everyone will go oh my god the riad comedy festival's got so expensive now Yeah.

You know, and you won't be able to find accommodation.

Yeah, if you, I mean, it's...

But I used to be able to get like a two-bed flat on Square for like, you know, 300 quid for

the whole run.

And now you're miles outside Boulevard.

Yeah.

Shall we go for a break?

That was very bracing.

Let's do that.

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Welcome back, everybody.

Now, on to

more pleasant matters.

Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift.

Listen, they're getting married.

As she said, your gym teacher is marrying your English teacher.

But we know about Taylor Swift, but Travis Kelsey, who is a sports star essentially, but now is a huge entertainment titan as well.

I think perhaps over here we know a little bit less about him.

It's a genuinely fascinating story because he is an NFL player and he obviously has entertainment, comedy, ambitions.

Not the first time, you know, obviously we have Terry Cruise.

Obviously, if you thought the ground was salted after O.J.

Simpson, not at all, not at all.

But there is a better way in the the form of Travis Kelsey.

He is extraordinarily diversified.

He's still playing.

Retirement will come relatively soon, pretty soon.

By the way, and he's the real deal in terms of American football.

He's won the Super Bowl three times.

He's a Hall of Famer.

It's just been an unbelievable run on all possible fronts.

It's sort of hilarious.

He's had a good decade or something.

Because we should say that all this was happening, all this diversification and becoming a sort of

multimedia brand brand was happening well before he met Taylor Swift.

There's a forgotten dating show called Catching Kelsey that happened on the e-channel in 2016.

He didn't find true love on that, thank goodness.

Saving himself with this cultural moment.

He did...

a deal with Pfizer to promote COVID jabs, which got him a lot of backlash, but also a lot of people saw it.

He co-owns a steakhouse with his chiefs teammate, Patrick Mahomes.

He's got a clothing line, he's got a nutrition brand, he is going to host Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity on Prime, I think.

He was in an episode of one of those Ryan Murphy horror sort of anthologies, Grotesque Aroup.

He hosted SNL, which was a big sort of extraordinary thing.

He's invested in an indie movie.

He's invested in some hot sauce, a brand I particularly like.

He's got

Cholula.

The classic, the Cholula, which has got the little round wooden head bottle.

It's really nice.

You know it.

Oh, I know.

Exactly.

The classic Mexican restaurant one that's in all of them.

Cholula.

He's invested in.

That's Travis Kelsey.

Yeah.

Well, he's not just him, but he did.

There's other people.

Yeah.

Sounds like you're invested in that company.

I'm invested as a consumer.

I told you he did the Grower Garden collaboration.

That is massive, though.

All of those people seeing you and being interested in you.

So I suppose we have to say, who is his manager or his branding agency?

Yeah, where's this come from?

Listen, he's obviously got a kind of a spark in him that wants to be in the conversation and wants to do entertainment.

Well, he's got it, which is helpful.

But it's really interesting.

There are these two brothers who are his business managers, and they're called Andre and Aaron Eans.

And Andre Eans was a childhood friend of Travis Kelsey's roommate at the University of Cincinnati, where he obviously was a...

brilliant college footballer, etc.

And he started a sort of events thing even while he was at college.

And Travis Kelsey was apparently the life and soul of all parties and wanted to get like, you know, backstory, you know,

kind of free tickets or kind of VIP passes or whatever.

And meanwhile, his brother, Aaron, Andre Eans' Ianes's brother, was studying sports management.

And what he thought was, oh, I want to be not a traditional type of sports agent.

I want to be a bit more like someone who manages a musical artist.

Yeah.

And who, you know, where you're doing all these other things and you're thinking, which other brands could we bring in?

And something more like that.

Anyway.

And they were trying to pitch all this to obviously what they had access to was college footballers and trying to say, but all of them just want a football agent and they want to go big and that's what they want.

So Travis Kelsey became their second client.

Wow.

Yeah, it's cool, isn't it?

You know what?

Whenever I hear a story like that, all I want to know is, who's the first one?

Yeah, so do I.

I know, I know.

That's what I was thinking.

Yeah, it's not clear.

I did actually try and find that out, but I couldn't.

So sorry for failing on that front.

Now he's got sort of full football agents.

He's with CAA.

He's got publicists and creative strategists and all of this stuff.

But they planned his sort of crossover from way before he met Taylor Swift.

They wanted him to be like The Rock.

Well, that's kind of like The Rock, but for football.

Yeah, well, The Rock started in college football, then he went to wrestling, and then obviously, you know, now he's rock.

Yeah.

Having, remember, he got his name back.

He no longer has to be Dwayne Johnson because he got the rock back.

He was briefly called a hard place, wasn't he?

Yeah.

Yeah, and that was like Prince phase.

But as I say, he wanted it, and he's got that ambition.

And just he obviously has got that charm, which is very, very particular.

Things like he really wanted, he's always wanted to do SNL, and he said, I want to do SNL.

So they managed to get him to go to an after-party at one, you know, when maybe when

he was nearby nearby or he was in New York or something.

And he went, made a beeline for Lorne Michaels, talked to him, and then as soon as he won the first Super Bowl, they literally rang the next morning and said, okay, fine.

That's the thing sometimes when someone's a sense looks absolutely effortless is because they are incredibly charismatic and good at what they do.

And so every time they send a letter or every time they have a meeting or every time they bump into somebody, that person follows up.

you know, with them because they're like, oh, this guy has got it all.

So it's not like you're having to scrabble, you're having to hustle, you're having to grift.

You just turn up, be yourself, and immediately people go, oh, I can, I can make some money out of you.

The whole sort of persona was interesting because he's huge, he's a kind of in a big, big macho sport.

But the whole thing with Taylor Swift, where he's like, hey, I'm just a plus one, I'm really happy to be here, is a really, really kind of good vibe.

It's interesting that she would sort of end up with him in a way because she, you know, she came to London famously and she had all these kind of English boys, these kind of artistic souls, you know, and Mati Healy.

And

I'm joking, don't be silly.

He's very successful.

And now she's with this kind of someone you would think was like a big meathead slice of Americana, but actually it's so much more than that.

And that's what's so he's really interesting.

The way he talks about himself is

like a cute alpha.

Yeah.

It's okay for everyone to like him.

And I'm not like, I'm talking like red state, blue state.

He's a bit a little bit like the rock in that way.

I mean, although I find the rock infinitely more absurd, as you know.

And you know, I like that in my celebrities, but that's fine.

But they're all different, and so I like different things.

They're all different.

They're all different, aren't they?

That's why we love celebrities.

No, we love them because they're all different.

But there is something incredibly charming and magnetic about him.

And to be so, to be really sort of amusing and funny about being her plus one is just to sort of it undercuts so much of what you might think came with.

It's an amazing cultural moment.

By the way, they're in, I think they're in love with each other.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Which is great.

I'm just checking because sometimes I miss things.

But they're in love with each other.

But to get to the point where you are so unbelievably famous like he was, and then you think, actually, the best thing I can do for my brand now is to show how unfamous I am by

marrying one of the eight people in America who is more famous than me.

It kind of works so beautifully.

for both of them.

How lovely.

I mean, one hopes it lasts forever and ever and ever.

We haven't even mentioned what he has, which is he has his New Heights podcast, which is absolutely huge.

That's that, I think.

With his brother.

Yeah, with his brother, Jason.

And that's the way that people have got to know him.

Because I suppose you just, as we know, you're talking for many hours a week.

And it's really, that's been very significant.

Obviously, she released her, she announced her latest album.

But the thing that he always says is, and I think in terms of what he's interested in doing, acting, all these things, is, oh, I know I'm coachable.

The brand is a form of humility, weirdly, which when you're kind of six foot five and all conquering three times Super Bowl champion, is actually quite

hard to retain, but definitely hard to pull off and make it believable.

But because we have access to this podcast where you can hear him talking all the time he you do believe it because you you sort of feel like you can't be you can't be any other normal it's hard to be authentic for that length of time every week yeah well in tv that's the lovely thing about tv you can definitely be authentic for a whole career if you're only doing like uh an hour a week on saturday nights yeah but yeah but if you if you're doing two hours every week with your brother people people soon find you out

I can think of a few people from you know the the 80s generation of hosts if they'd done a podcast you'd have been like oh well that's interesting.

I think it would have been compelling.

Wouldn't it just?

But yeah, you know what?

Listen, there's lots of problems with AI, but the idea that maybe in 10 years' time we can have, you know, podcasts hosted by Jim Davidson and Scylla Black together.

You just think, well, listen, I would listen.

I would listen.

Yeah, I would listen.

I would listen.

Are they, Richard, the apex of celebrity couples?

Well, two questions.

If you think about the big celeb couples now in the entertainment sphere, you've got Travis and Taylor, who are now official.

You've got the Beckhams, who we've spoken about before.

You've got got Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

You've got to put up there.

Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Again, we've got some tarnished brands.

You're barring out now.

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, I think, have to be in the world of entertainment now.

I'm hearing their brand might be vaguely tarnished, but carry on.

Even the Obamas, I think you have to accept, are currently an entertainment brand, given, you know, they're writers and they produce films and stuff like that.

Of all of those celebrity couples, if you had to invite a couple round for dinner, and not just, oh my God, wouldn't it be crazy to meet?

And I'll get loads of stories, but you genuinely think it's...

All of those, all of the.

All of those.

Or

you can choose models own if you wish and go for something else.

Yeah, I want to go.

But if you had to have people that you can Ingrid end of, if you and Ingrid can't come, or maybe you can come.

You can't, what day is it?

You can come as a sex.

Well, we'll decide whether we're coming.

I like the old stuff.

After I hear who, who, after I hear who you are.

But what about, like, you know, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall?

Or like.

If you said to me, if you rang me up and said, Would you and Ingrid like to come around for dinner?

We've got Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall coming around.

Firstly, I'd phone your husband and go, is Marina okay?

And secondly, I'd go, you know what?

Okay.

All of those would be Frank Sinacher and Ava Gardner.

Really?

Yeah, but okay.

I know this is a terrible time in her life, but these are two titans, Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller.

You're not going to, I mean, I personally would like to have them to dinner.

I was thinking of Marilyn Monroe and JFK.

That would be quite good.

Joe DiMaggio, even, but yeah.

Yeah, that would be quite fun, wouldn't it?

Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest.

Oh, there we go.

They would be good.

Yeah, perfect.

There's that great episode of Kirby Enthusiasm where Larry's invited to a dinner party and he says, well, I'm going to ask you else it's coming.

And Cheryl goes, you can't ask you to come.

He goes, why can't I ask you to coming?

If I'd asked and you said it's it's Jamie Nicosis and Christopher Guest, yes, please.

Okay, what about Burton and Taylor?

I wouldn't want them necessarily to come to.

Oh, no, that is the most iconic in some ways because the most badly behaved, the most disgustingly kind of financially indulgent, the most unfettered ids of all time, maybe.

But you'd have such a bad time.

Those people who didn't live their lives in public quite so much, it looked like they did at the time, sit on the front page of the papers, but they didn't.

And you look into them, you just go, oh, I don't know.

I don't know if you'd get on with my friends.

Oh, okay, Elton and David.

100%.

That'll be fun.

Because the gossip would be off the scale.

He doesn't, I mean, even when he's talking in public, he says exactly.

He's like one of the last celebrities who says exactly what he thinks all the time.

The gossip would be off scale.

Okay, that would be good.

I think Jay-Z and Beyonce would be fun.

Fun?

I don't think they'd be the remotest bit of fun.

You don't think you'd be funny?

What?

They'd let their hair down?

No, I don't think so.

I don't think it would be a laugh.

Okay.

Do you think you'd have a laugh with Jay-Z and Beyonce?

Yeah, I think I would.

Me, yeah, I think I would.

I'm good with people.

I would have liked DeMarn and David Bowie.

I would have loved that.

Can you imagine that?

That would have been, I would have loved that.

Yeah.

And I think you would have had a laugh.

What was this item about?

I can't remember now.

Where are we now?

Oh, what about John and Yoko?

Again, maybe not a big laugh, but maybe quite a big laugh.

Yeah, I think maybe I'd always go with whoever Paul is with.

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, not whoever.

With one exception.

With one notable.

With one notable.

Enough of your anti-Linda McCartney rants.

That was not about Linda, just for the benefit of the tape.

Honestly, I'd like Taylor and Travis to come over.

That is quite frankly.

Was that the answer?

Well, no, I wouldn't.

I would help you with all Taylor.

No, gosh, not at all, because you've absolutely trumped it with Jamie D.

Curtis and Christopher Guest.

That would be mine.

In terms of their net worth, Taylor Swift is 1.6 billion and Travis is 70 million.

Although I imagine he's worth a bit more than that.

All of these are those nonsensical figures sometimes you get in papers.

But she is worth an awful lot.

more than him but together they multiply and as in every couple this is how you can always tell if a couple are right for each other do they multiply each other or do they divide each other and they multiply each other for sure definitely the richest couple are Jay-Z and Beyonce yes because I mean Beyoncé's worth close to a billion and yes Jay-Z because of Rockefeller Rock Nation all that he's he's like 3.2 billion or something so they are sort of the most powerful celebrity couple but it feels like culturally Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey they they cover such a broad range.

It'd be fascinating to see what that means.

For this particular cultural moment, they do.

Well, listen, write in, everybody.

We're celebrity couple, alive or dead.

Rod Stewart and Penny Lance.

Yes.

We'd actually like that.

Yeah, we wish Travis and for what it's worth, we wish Travis and Taylor all the very best.

Very best.

How lovely.

They're like the Liam Neeson and Pam Anderson of the next generation.

Now there's some

aspersions being cast on that relationship, but I don't believe in it.

Nope, I'm not listening.

I'm not listening either.

Pam and Liam coming around?

round?

Oh, yeah, for definite.

For definite.

That'd be interesting.

Yeah, oh, no, that would be great.

We're going to need a couple of little camping tables to put at the end of the dining table.

That'd be a children's table which I'd be sitting on.

Oh, listen, you have to tell us about Thursday Murder Club.

The numbers.

Yes, please.

What can I tell you?

Are you allowed to tell us numbers?

No.

You're allowed to.

Well, you can tell us a chart position because it's number one.

Yeah, well, funny enough, today is in terms of the economics of these things, it needs to hit a certain number.

We'll get the numbers today.

There's a three-day number where you get your numbers for all the English-speaking territories,

which is, for various reasons, the most important thing for this project.

You get then get a week number, and then you get a 28-day number as well.

So the three-day number will come in today as this podcast is coming out, and that's the one that will decide really, will they do the next movie?

We don't have the American numbers to what I can look at the English numbers, and they're great, and that's lovely, and it's done very good business over here.

Yeah, worldwide, it's number one, which is lovely numbers.

Netflix numbers, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

exactly just to be super clear because it is still in the box office you can still

you can still see it in the in in in cinemas absolutely the economics of it are are to me anyway are interesting and you know as someone who loves the overnights and loves charts and things like that i genuinely i have to admit this and i've only admitted this to chris columbus so far on saturday i used my vpn to go through all of the different Netflixes around the world to see where it was on the different charts.

And then I sent Melissa where it was number one.

He was very happy.

I love that you did that.

I was going to say, okay, Bulgaria, there we go.

I tried to just for

House of Games completists, I thought I want to see if it's number one in Kazakhstan because that'd be fun.

But actually,

you can't get the data out of Kazakhstan, so that's a shame.

Are you able to see immediate effects on things like book sales?

Are you?

Yeah, which is, yeah, it's gone.

It's back on the New York Times bestseller list, which is lovely.

Yeah,

it's really

pumped things up, which is great.

So people are enjoying it.

I'd love to see you getting thrown in bone.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That's very, very kind.

Oh, I am thrilled for you.

It's brilliant, though.

No, it's lovely.

And, you know, different things like I hadn't, I didn't, I hadn't booked a Saudi book tour before this week, and now I have.

I've got a big tour.

So I'm playing.

Oh, you're playing Square?

Playing Square, yeah, which I'm really looking forward to.

I am not doing a Saudi book tour, Daily Express, before you publish that.

No, it's fascinating.

We'll get the numbers today.

And after a month, when all the numbers have come through, maybe I'll do a dive on how they use their metrics, what they mean, how Netflix makes its money.

Just I'll just maybe.

Yes, because we know very little about a lot of this stuff.

So, this would be a genuine window.

Now, they won't tell me.

Yeah,

now they won't.

Yeah.

We're going to talk now about Michael Jackson's sort of commercial afterlife.

When Michael Jackson died,

he was in famously in about half a billion dollars worth of debt.

And in fact, that's why he was doing the This Is It concert tour.

He is now, his estate is now worth at least $3 billion.

So, we're going to talk a little bit about how they did it, existing projects and upcoming projects.

In terms of how they did it, they did a lot of music catalogue deals, which they sold half of the music catalogue to Sony, and he had a huge stake in Sony, which already had a percentage of the Beatles catalogue.

Um, he had a minority interest in it at EMI, which I think they sold.

They also started licensing the music for things like Cirque du Selet shows, so there's things like that, live productions.

But the big thing, one of the big things has been MJ the Musical, which has had a sort of record-breaking run in New York.

I think it's currently on about $300 million in gross earnings.

They've sold millions of tickets worldwide.

And it's also the perfect answer to the question.

do we judge the art by the artist?

And the answer is no, we don't.

It does keep a very narrow timeframe, that musical.

It's all set

for the first child abuse allegations from Georgie Chander, which were in 1993.

And the director and the choreographer of that said they wrestled with it, but they decided in the end it was just entertainment.

They're freedom of speech machines.

Yeah, they're freedom of speech machines.

Freedom of moonwalking machines.

It's won a lot of Tony's.

It's won lots of what it won the Black British Theatre Awards last year.

It won Big At That.

It's very, very successful.

Of sort of more forthcoming interest is this movie they're doing.

This is really fascinating.

This whole story of the movie is really interesting because.

He's been played by his own nephew.

Jafar Jackson.

Jafar Jackson.

How can you call John Jafar?

The movie is really easy to understand.

How can you misunderstand Aladdin?

Okay, fine.

Anyway, it's written by John Logan, who wrote The Aviator, who did The Equalizer, all sorts of things.

Directed by Anton Farquhar, who did Training Day.

You know, Coleman Domingo is playing Joe Jackson.

Miles Teller is playing a very interesting person.

He's been a sort of defender of...

Michael Jackson's legacy.

He's called John Branca.

So he's one of the guys who was actually behind how much money he runs the estate.

And he's like an absolute back-to-the-wall defender of Jackson and the legacy.

We'll come back to him in a minute.

But anyway, this movie was supposed to come out this year,

but they have had to go back and reshoot the entire thing bigger.

Well, because, I mean, interestingly, unlike the musical, they're thinking, no, this is going to be, we're going to tell the whole story.

We're not going to back away from this.

You know, that's the whole point.

You know, we

love Michael, and so we have to show everything that happened in his life.

We're not afraid to take on controversies head-on.

But it turns out they are not able to.

They're not able to because

the part of the settlement with Geordie chandler the the first child to make that we know about to make um allegations against michael jackson that became public in 1993 part of the settlement was that the family would never be portrayed and in this they're portrayed as kind of money grubbing and all of that and in fact we don't know what but whether this will be the in fact the uh script that was shot but matt bellany who writes for park who is brilliant used to be editor of the hollywood report he now does a podcast called the town and

he's in the studio as well isn't he yeah yeah he he saw the script and says it opens with or a script it opens with the police raiding neverland in 1993 and jackson being strip searched which he said was the most humiliating moment of his life because the child georgie chandler made various anatomical um claims about him and they were anyway so it definitely didn't shy away from it but they're not allowed to do any of this Someone from the Jackson estate did not tell the filmmakers this.

You can't actually believe that this much money.

This film is incredibly expensive, but they've spent a fortune on this film.

Considering it's a sort of human story, I think it's way over 150 million, and that's ridiculous.

You know, that's like for CGI movies.

Yeah.

And it doesn't, it's not full of massive stars.

I mean, Coleman Domingo's getting paid a lot, but it's not, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but that's the talent is nothing on it.

It's extraordinary the amount of money that's been sent on this.

So they're now going to do that.

I think they're going to do that old new trick where they're going to divide the movie into two because apparently there's so much to say.

Well, the film has been pushed back.

It's supposed to be April next year.

We'll see if it's April next year.

It's already been pushed back because unfortunately they had to redo the entire last third.

But now it's being split.

Maybe they won't have to.

The thing about him is that he is as you know he is making more money now than he made in the final third of his life because he was dogged by all these allegations and I you know I have to say I think he would have been dogged by them for the rest of his life.

It's very interesting how the fans are able to divorce it in so many ways.

Leaving Neverland, that documentary, the HBO documentary that came out was very, very interesting.

Two grown men now, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, alleged of his abuse of them.

It's amazing because if you watch that documentary, it's unbelievably affecting and that it's awful, really awful and harrowing.

And yet, people are still able to say, oh, this is, you know, but you maintained a relationship with him.

Something we know we don't necessarily always have to say about people who are in abusive relationships.

Your families are money-grubbing, whatever it is.

And I'm sort of amazed that the estate survived that because it was really intense.

And actually, what's quite interesting is that there is a civil suit coming from both of those guys, from Wade Robson and James Safejack, against two of Michael Jackson's production companies

saying that, you know, your employees failed to protect us.

Because that's the whole thing about Michael Jackson is that one thing that people always say is that, you know, you lived in a house with masses of servants, not all of whom were chimps, you know, because

the chimps were actually put to work around the house.

Doing what?

Like window cleaning and stuff.

Moving pianos.

Yeah.

Yeah, basically.

The chimp was window cleaning.

Yeah.

How does that work?

It's really, but some of them, and it became

you'd have to do it again.

You have to do it yourself afterwards.

Yeah, apparently there were whole issues.

There were a lot of issues with the chimps.

Yeah, I would have thought so.

But anyhow, this guy, John Branca, who is going to be in the movie, not so long ago, five men came to him and said that they were going to go public a decade after his death.

I think it was 2019.

They did a deal with him, the estate in 2020 and said

the whole value of the deal was each of you are going to get $3.3 million,

but it's in staggered payments and you now have to defend him from alleging inappropriate payment.

They did defend him, except one of them, when the last payment was due, said, yeah, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore.

I now want $230 million.

And so there are all of these things.

And there are quotes from John Branca who says, we survived leaving Neverland, but I'm not sure we

could have with these additional allegations.

And he says that the lawyer said to him, you've got no choice.

If these people come forward and make these allegations, then Michael is over.

His legacy is over.

The business is done.

And yet it's not done.

And so

at the same time as it has become this sort of unbelievable money-making juggernaut, there are these things going through the courts and coming closer to court.

We're so siloed still as a culture, aren't we, that actually there are some things that just don't come across enough people's radar.

And, you know, all he needs is most of the people who love Michael Jackson to not really hear this stuff and oh they hear it but they don't believe it they go down internet rabbit holes we have to say that all of what they've done the estate has worked yeah

he has made as i say more money now than he's made in the last third of his life he isn't alive to continue doing things that get in his own way should we put it that way and it remains a sort of juggle the movie i think will be huge it certainly needs to be on that budget the only things are these constant series of allegations that are working their way and many in some cases are legal submissions and they will have to be dealt with.

But the estate has done extraordinarily well in the particular circumstances, I would say.

And the beneficiaries of the estate seem to be his mother, who is still with us and the three children who have been through various troubles, but actually seem remarkably stable from the background they come from.

Yeah.

Blankets changed his name.

Blankets called Bijis or something now, isn't it?

But the estate just keeps growing and getting bigger.

And so we'll have to see how it pays out.

But it's all worked.

It's been very very tactical yeah a lot of it stewarded by this guy John Branca and it has it has thus far worked have you got a recommendation for us Richard now I do if I may the new suede album is out on Thursday yes I saw it's brilliant it's so great you know they're in their late 50s these guys and this album is getting five stars everywhere in the it's like it's and it's a really really good album sort of post-punky and slightly gothy slightly rocky it's just it's just great and i'm i'm i'm so proud of my brother uh and it's i've loved all the interviews they've done some good interviews.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They are, I'd say, more comfortable with themselves than they were in the 90s.

Definitely.

And lovely to see them living their best lives.

But antidepressants, it's called.

And it's an absolute stormer.

Well, I think that about wraps us up.

A lot of controversy today.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Apart from we love Travis Kelsey.

Yes, exactly.

A strangely, oddly uncontroversial position.

Yeah, thank you.

In a world of schism,

he brings us together.

Now, a very exciting bonus episode this week.

The dream for both you and me, but particularly you.

We are going behind the scenes on Transfer Deadline Day at Sky Sports News.

So our lovely producer, Joey, is not with us because he is, I think he got there at 4am this morning.

So he's going to talk you through what a production that is.

They're on the air like all day long during Transfer Deadline Day down at Sky Sports.

So all the behind the scenes of how that's put together.

Iconic, I think it's fair to say.

Icon Ek.

Exactly.

So that will be for members on Friday.

Anyway, if you want to join and have Abfrey listening, et cetera, et cetera, it's therestersenttertainment.com.

Otherwise, we will be back as usual on Thursday.

See you on Thursday.

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