I can see it both ways with Joe Lycett. Being paid a few hundred quid by a UK comedy promoter to perform for ordinary people in Doha is not really the same thing as accepting millions (when you're already a multimillionaire) from an the authoritarian Qatari government to whitewash their human rights abuses.
However, there is a lot of "rules for thee but not for me" and "it's okay when we/I do it" in modern politics and alleged social activism so I can also see why this would rub people the wrong way.
Him being so flippant and dismissive of it doesn't help either. If he'd explained the situation from the beginning, and maybe donated whatever his fee was to charity as well, then I think people would have accepted it.