Bill Maher said during a recent “Club Random” podcast interview (via Mediaite) with Adam Carolla that Jimmy Kimmel is “very mad at me.” Carolla and Kimmel used to work together as co-hosts of “The Man Show” on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2004.
“Jimmy Kimmel, you know, he’s very mad at me and I know you’re close to him,” Maher told Carolla. “I hope you tell him that I’m sorry that it got bent out of shape. I don’t think I did anything wrong. We can have disagreements. I mean, you and I don’t agree on everything, look at this clash now, and yet we’re cool.”
“The Republicans are always this sort of difference between the right and the left. It bugs me so much,” Maher continued, noting how Democrats struggle with criticism far more than Republicans. “My tribe is supposed to be the left, but these are the people who just can’t talk to you unless you’re exactly there, whereas the Republicans, they always fucking come to my show. John Kennedy from Louisiana was on last week, took his beating like a man, like they all do, and we came across lovingly and smilingly and happily and we can disagree.”
Maher said that Kimmel is “one of the nicest guys,” but he is not going to go the traditional late-night route when it comes to political humor. Maher will always take aim at both political parties, “and if that’s not good enough for you, then I think you’re the asshole,” the “Real Time” host added.
“I don’t just buy into the left-wing bullshit, and I never stop making fun of the right-wing bullshit at all!” Maher said. “And like, if that’s not good enough for you, then I think you’re the asshole, and I don’t think Jimmy is an asshole… I think he’s a great guy, and it bugs me that, you know, because of what the latest thing was, that, you know, we may never talk again.”
While Maher did not say directly why Kimmel is mad at him, it appears tied to a “Real Time” episode last November, where Maher called out Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, for revealing she had cut ties with Trump-loving family members.
McNearney joined Kimmel for an interview on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast at the time and opened up on her “challenging” relationships with Trump-supporting family members amid the president’s ongoing feud with Kimmel. She said she has “sympathy” for her relatives who are “deliberately being misinformed every day,” but “it hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man.”
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“To me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family,” she added, saying “unfortunately” she has “lost relationships with people in my family because of it.”
Maher responded to McNearney’s reveal on “Real Time” by saying: “She says she’s lost relationships with relatives because she wrote them an email before the election with ten reasons why they shouldn’t vote for Trump, and some still didn’t obey, so you know. Ultimatums. Ten reasons? I can think of 100. But I would never present it to someone as an ultimatum. Ultimatums don’t make people rethink their politics. They make them rethink you.”
The host then said on a December episode of the “Club Random” podcast that Kimmel was mad at him for the criticism, adding: “I was as kid-gloved as I could. And I see they’re mad at me. Uh, I’m sorry. I mean, I was being, again, as respectful as I could, but I don’t agree with that point of view. And since she went public with it, it wasn’t out of school for me to go public with it. I love Jimmy. I’ve always have. I don’t know him that well, but he’s a great guy… I hope we’re friends forever, but I don’t know. You know, the liberals and the woke, that’s a schism. It just is.”
Watch the latest episode of Maher’s “Club Random” podcast in the video below.
From Variety US