Drew Barrymore | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore kick back on the iconic Club Random swing – a first-ever episode filmed in this new spot. From Hollywood highs to deeply personal moments, nothing’s off-limits. Drew dishes on her unconventional childhood, wild nights at Studio 54, and being institutionalized as a teen, experiences that shaped her grit, resilience, and outlook on aging with self-acceptance. She shares behind-the-scenes laughs from her Adam Sandler movies and quirky Hollywood Squares memories. And in one of the night’s most unexpected twists, she and Bill revisit the evening Drew’s house went up in flames… just two weeks after he moved in next door. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠ Support our Advertisers: Streamline your hiring! Try ZipRecruiter for free at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/random Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapod #ad Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 1:31Speaker 03

  And I had this realization, I'm gonna cry again, cuz, you know...

• 1:36Bill Maher?

  I got the box!

• 1:41Speaker 03

  To get away with shit.

• 1:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'll do it for free.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  Cheers to that.

• 1:54Speaker 03

  That sound effect was really interesting.

• 1:56Bill Maher?

  Lady of the house here?

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Lady of the house!

• 2:01Bill Maher?

  You.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Hi!

• 2:02Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  I used to try to do yoga in here and it was like

• 2:08Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Too, like you brought good air into it.

• 2:13Bill Maher?

  Well, I have to tell you, not only am I thrilled that you're here, but this is the first time we've ever used this bench.

• 2:19Speaker 03

  I heard, but then I got into my inner director and I was like, "Well, you have three-quarter shots, not even over sides, so you're getting more than a profile, which is really well done."

• 2:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. Well, I'm not a director, so I don't really know what you're talking about, but

• 2:38Speaker 03

  The coverage is good.

• 2:42Bill Maher?

  I get the layman's basic idea. I just, no, I know you are a director. You directed that awesome, you know, rollerball skating movie.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yes, you saw it?

• 2:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, everybody saw it.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Oh my God, thank you. That means so much to me.

• 2:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because people, I mean, who thinks of you first as a director? Very few. And why didn't you do it more?

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Kids.

• 3:07Bill Maher?

  Kids?

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:09Bill Maher?

  What, they run on the set while you're directing? Are we taking too much time?

• 3:13Speaker 03

  I want it to be like a real, and by the way, I'm in perimenopause, so I just might cry a lot, so, because I'm in that mood where like

• 3:21Bill Maher?

  Well, I didn't think you have to wait for menopause for that.

• 3:25Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  By the way, I haven't, but you know what? I didn't, and my mom used to cry all the time. And of course, as a kid, you're like, "Oh, God, that's so embarrassing." And then my kids see me cry all the time. But yes, no, I didn't wait till perimenopause to become a crier, but now it comes out in a schmilcus way that's so insane. It's like I'm like horses on the edge of a cliff, like, whoa! And

• 3:49Bill Maher?

  What is this word you're saying, before menopause?

• 3:52Speaker 03

  Peri.

• 3:53Bill Maher?

  Who's peri?

• 3:56Bill Maher?

  What, I never heard that.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Peri is like You're not there, you're not in the club yet, but you're in the line at the stanchions.

• 4:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see, you're on the waiting list.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  I'm in the waiting list, yeah.

• 4:11Bill Maher?

  So it's coming, but, and you still feel physical effects?

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I know, because it did go to like a sexual place there. By the way, I know, I've been living in like such a sexually minded place doing Hollywood Squares the last two weeks.

• 4:25Bill Maher?

  What? Why does that make you sexual?

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Uh, no, it doesn't make me sexual, but you heard the kind of jokes we do in there, and it's, it's just a naughty fun place.

• 4:35Bill Maher?

  Certainly not the Hollywood Squares I remember from childhood.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Right? I know. Someone asked me, they were like, is this for kids? I was like, I, no, I don't think it is.

• 4:46Bill Maher?

  No, it's definitely not. And when is, when is it going on?

• 4:49Speaker 03

  It goes-

• 4:50Bill Maher?

  In the fall?

• 4:51Speaker 03

  No, I think it'll come in January again.

• 4:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, on CBS at night, right?

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Yes, at like 10 o'clock.

• 4:59Bill Maher?

  Because I used to watch it at 10 in the morning when I was like sick. It was like a real treat.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  The Price is Right and Hollywood Squares lets me know that I am a child homesick. I am not at school, but more not at work.

• 5:15Bill Maher?

  Right, and since you had such a normal childhood.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, who better to speak about that?

• 5:21Speaker 03

  I know, and by the way-

• 5:23Bill Maher?

  Like, we all had that childhood, where we were like taking cocaine at 8. At Studio 54. I think we all can relate.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  I mean-

• 5:31Bill Maher?

  I remember.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  It, I, I don't regret a thing, though.

• 5:36Bill Maher?

  Well-

• 5:36Speaker 03

  I loved all of it.

• 5:37Bill Maher?

  You did?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I did. I really did. I really do now. But it's hilarious being a mom, because I'm like, oh my god, you can't do that, but-

• 5:47Bill Maher?

  See, that's funny, because I would think, and by the way, I'm so glad we're starting early today, because I allow- I'm having liquor for breakfast.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Great.

• 5:57Bill Maher?

  It's awesome.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Nothing better to do. By the way, I like to party at 9 a.m. and then be done by like 3 to 6 p.m.

• 6:05Bill Maher?

  You know what?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  If I can even go that long.

• 6:07Bill Maher?

  As I've gotten older, I've, I, I never used to get high in the day, and now I'm the same way. It's like, why not take advantage of the natural, well, the sun is great when you're high.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  The best.

• 6:20Bill Maher?

  And also, like, you have more energy.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:23Bill Maher?

  So if you, you know, some people don't like getting high, that, that's perfectly fine. Pop doesn't work on everybody. But if it does work on you, why not use it when you're like peaking?

• 6:36Speaker 03

  This is my last tattoo and it's like I time.

• 6:41Bill Maher?

  Time, oh.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  I think about it differently now for the first time. And I I like that that's like a new way of thinking for me.

• 6:51Bill Maher?

  What is?

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Time.

• 6:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, time.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Like I had just so much time to burn all life, you know, because you're young and you're stupid.

• 6:58Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, so if menopause, that makes you what, 50?

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, Perry.

• 7:06Bill Maher?

  But you look great for 50.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 7:08Bill Maher?

  I mean, you're still super fuckable, which is all you can all you can ask for at what? At 50, right, is you just want to stay fuckable.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:17Bill Maher?

  I mean, no person is ever going to be like, very few, you know, for everybody some, you know, I mean, at my age, you know, a lot of people would rule that out. But, you know, still, like, I would say the pool of men.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  I'm shocked to hear you sell yourself short because you come out like such a coxman on your show. It's like insane the level of fucking bravado you have.

• 7:43Bill Maher?

  But but, OK, but there's a certain percentage of women, and I would say it's a lot, who, if you suggested, you know, being with a 70 year old man, they'd be like, fuck.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Are you 70?

• 7:55Bill Maher?

  Shortly, in a few months, like in six months.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  You look fucking great.

• 7:59Bill Maher?

  So do you. I think it's something in the pot.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  And the iced tea. I drink tea all day long. I think it's preserving me.

• 8:08Bill Maher?

  Well, I take also a million supplements.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:11Bill Maher?

  You know, they have stuff now.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they say.

• 8:14Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I think it works because I also give it to the dogs and they seem to live forever.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  OK, I need some of that shit for my dog.

• 8:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, they, I mean, I don't know what it is, doggy Flintstone vitamins or whatever, but.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  See, that's what I'm trained on, is the Flintstone vitamin. So like I only just started thinking about health recently when I realized, oh, time. You know, like, and I'd like to elongate it now, which was just not like a thought I had, you know?

• 8:46Bill Maher?

  You've had so many, I mean, we all had, if we're 50 and up. Different eras in our life, you know, like.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  I love this era already. I'm only a few months in.

• 8:56Bill Maher?

  Your era.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  The fifty.

• 8:57Bill Maher?

  Right. Yeah, I think you will. I I like.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  I feel like my life has begun in a lot of ways.

• 9:03Bill Maher?

  It's so true. As someone twenty years ahead of you, I'm telling you, I think you'll like it a lot. I did. I liked it more because I wasn't stupid.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 9:12Bill Maher?

  But to put it just bluntly, I'm just not stupid like I was when I was young.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  And I always wanted to trust something or someone. And I finally found like the deepest and most profound trust. And you know who it fucking is with?

• 9:29Bill Maher?

  You.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Me.

• 9:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 9:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  It's like, I feel born and liberated in ways that I did not think possible in my whole life. And it's it's like

• 9:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  The Wizard of Oz technicolor. You're like, oh, my god.

• 9:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  I and I think black and white is beautiful, so it's not like everything was shit.

• 9:54Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  And I regret or I wish I could have done it all differently. It's like I did not think that I would talk about psychedelic man. I'm I didn't think I could be on this earth and no peace or trust or self-protection or these things that I'm knowing now that are so foreign, but they've it's not like I didn't know they existed. I just didn't know if I would ever reach it.

• 10:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I feel the same way. Like especially with relationships with women, like there was when I was you know, twenties or thirty, I had, I didn't even wasn't even able to give a woman what she knew. I just didn't know. Then I knew and I didn't have the means in different ways to to provide. Now I feel like I know and I can give it to you. And that's a great thing. And also to not be needy. Like, you know, I mean, we've all, like, I never got married, so like. That's a whole different kettle of fish than you. I mean, when I, when I moved to this house next door, you were living here, you were married to Tom.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 11:04Bill Maher?

  By the way.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Had we, had we gotten married yet?

• 11:06Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, you were totally married.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  We were.

• 11:09Bill Maher?

  In fact, I was, I was living here next door for two weeks when the house burned down. And I don't know if you remember.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Welcome home.

• 11:15Bill Maher?

  I don't know if you remember this, but I had a brief conversation with you. I want to say over the fence, but it couldn't be that because we don't really have a fence. We have a line of trees between the, but some, maybe the driveway. But I do remember talking to you. And again, I was living here two weeks and it was just a very friendly neighborly. Hey, how you doing, you know? Um, and I said to you, you're like, oh, what are you, what are you doing for the weekend? Any, anything interesting? And you said, last words before the fire. I'm cooking dinner tonight.

• 11:49Bill Maher?

  I swear to God.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  No.

• 11:51Bill Maher?

  And the next thing you know, I'm on the phone in the morning.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Fucking comedy gold.

• 11:57Bill Maher?

  It must have been a Sunday that the house burned.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Can we just have a smash cut between I'm cooking dinner and?

• 12:04Bill Maher?

  Well, that's.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  That's how it plays in the mind in its perfection.

• 12:09Bill Maher?

  So my, my bedroom must be on the, it is on the other side of the house closest to this property. So I didn't even hear the fire. I woke up my usual time at noon on Sunday and, and I texted my assistant, which I never do on the weekend. You know, I don't bother my assistant on the weekend or after.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  I literally, I have such a policy of please don't bother coworkers on the weekend.

• 12:35Bill Maher?

  Right, right.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Well, some people, most people, there are some, of course, I'm calling constantly and.

• 12:40Bill Maher?

  So I said, where's my Sunday New York Times? And she said, she said, well, they couldn't get it to you because there's 16 fire trucks on the block.

• 12:53Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  By the way, that basically, it's not just funny. It's also like if I cooked dinner, the house might burn down. So it's, it's funny and it's fucking true. I, I will always blame myself for that fire. I'll always be like, I did something wrong. You know, I'm like a guilty person by nature. Everything is my fault.

• 13:11Bill Maher?

  Well, sure, you wanted to get out of the marriage, so you burned the house down. I think we all.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Shit, if only it was that easy.

• 13:20Bill Maher?

  Whenever I hear the Miley Cyrus Flowers song.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:24Bill Maher?

  I think of you because there's that line in it. We, you know, she's really talking about her marriage to Liam Neeson. That would be different. Liam Hendren.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  But equally as hot.

• 13:39Bill Maher?

  In a way.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 13:41Bill Maher?

  I just, I was just watching a trailer for a movie he's doing.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Make a Gun. It looks fucking amazing.

• 13:46Bill Maher?

  That's hysterical. That's gonna be hysterical. That's Seth MacFarlane.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  And Akiva Schaefer directing. I fucking cannot wait. It's the movie I'm the most excited about.

• 13:55Bill Maher?

  No, but this is one, he, he makes these, so many of them, and this one takes place in Mount Everest. He goes to bury, his friend dies, and, you know, he's gotta be 75 now. He, it looks the same. And, and he's going to bury, he's going to take his friend's ashes, who wants to be buried on Mount Everest. Of course, he runs into bad guys and like guns and buses going off cliffs.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 14:23Bill Maher?

  But, no, but the, her song, she says, "We built a, we built a home and burned it down." Do you know the song Flowers? It was like the biggest hit last year.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  I played it every day coming out to the show. It's one of my favorite songs ever.

• 14:36Bill Maher?

  You know that lyric, right? And we all know that their house did burn down.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  Theirs did too?

• 14:42Bill Maher?

  Yes, in Malibu.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 14:45Bill Maher?

  When, when we had like the Paradise Fire.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Oh, what is that? That's such a clear state of me with me. I'm like, I'm sure I caused everything wrong. And with her, I'm like, oh, their house burned down? Total empathy.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Oh, that's too bad for them. That's traumatizing. I'm so sorry that happened. Me, I'm like, no.

• 15:05Bill Maher?

  It's a short list of celebrities who burned their house down to get out of the marriage.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  Well, shit, I'm happy to be in a club with them, and I'm really sorry that we're all in it. But here we are at this club. I can't, I'm, I'm so thrilled. I, I had been thinking about you so much because, you know, I watch your show every week.

• 15:24Bill Maher?

  I'm so glad. Thank you.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Every week. And, and.

• 15:28Bill Maher?

  That's awesome.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like I see you every Friday night. So here we are in my old house.

• 15:37Bill Maher?

  What do you think of what I've done with the place? I felt it was nice when you had it, but it wasn't skeezy enough.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  No.

• 15:45Bill Maher?

  You didn't even have a stripper pole.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Oh, there is a stripper pole, but it's painted white, which is interesting. Much more elevated. Elle Decor doing stripper poles.

• 15:57Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah, you're right.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:59Bill Maher?

  I didn't notice that.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  That's a classy one. And then Whitney's doll, who I've already taken pictures with, P.S.

• 16:05Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  And, no, I, this was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright's. At least, that's what they told me.

• 16:12Bill Maher?

  The crooked door is so unique.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  And I love Frank Lloyd Wright so much. Love.

• 16:18Bill Maher?

  But when you, what did you do with this when you had it? This was a yoga?

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Nothing.

• 16:22Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Nothing. I did nothing.

• 16:25Bill Maher?

  But didn't you build the tiki bar above?

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Why when this house burned down, did I just not move into one of the other little houses? It's a compound. It's like a commune, which I could easily see myself living in.

• 16:37Bill Maher?

  Well, I assumed that the fire

• 16:39Speaker 03

  With my friends.

• 16:40Bill Maher?

  precipitated the divorce in some way, you know? It's like sometimes traumas happen in marriages.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:46Bill Maher?

  And then you can't get over it. And it's like, you burned the house down. No, you burned the house down.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Tom and I had already been through like him going through cancer on camera, which was something like I never would have expected. Because as much as I'm an open person

• 17:03Speaker 03

  and have been an exhibitionist at times throughout my life, but like really liberal and free and like, you know, expressive and finding, you know, out who I was kind of a way. I was not someone who like wanted to bring a camera into my personal life. And I did not know how to do that with him. So

• 17:23Bill Maher?

  And he insisted.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  He didn't insist. I was trying to go with the flow. You know? Which in some ways could sound like people pleasing and in some ways could be like, I just didn't know myself well enough to

• 17:37Bill Maher?

  People pleasing is not a dirty word. You know, peop-

• 17:41Speaker 03

  It doesn't have to be, but it has the most negative connotation. It is a word that has had no favors.

• 17:49Bill Maher?

  That's well put. I mean, yes, you can take anything too far. But like, if I love somebody, I want to please them. And there are people. That would be people pleasing. And I, and I find it wonderful when they, you know, I have to kowtow, but if they want to please me.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  I was just having this conversation literally yesterday. I was like, who, if you're in a relationship, like, who is going to inspire you to be able to sit down across from and say,

• 18:23Speaker 03

  "I'm having a problem. I'm having an issue. There's something that you, has happened where you have done this. And even if you word it in the most kind ways, the most unpersecutive, the most, you know, unbinding to feeling guilty. Like, even if you use the "I feel" or "my experiences", even if you're so poetic and gentle about it, having a problem in a relationship also connotates you having to then hear something about yourself. And do you care about that person enough to change? But you will also then be questioning something about yourself when you've worked so hard to finally stop putting yourself down or liking yourself enough to want to be that.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  In a relationship, you have to like someone enough, trust them enough to alter yourself, to fit them too. Because then if you trust them, you'll be coming from the right place. You'll be working in harmony with someone. But I think trust has been, like, I think that's the most important thing.

• 19:29Bill Maher?

  Well, where I fundamentally don't go with that.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  I can't wait to hear it. Give me.

• 19:35Bill Maher?

  Is, no, is you use the words "change" and "alter". And I'll tell you who fixes this problem. It's on your wrist. It's time. When you're first in a relationship.

• 19:48Bill Maher?

  You know, it's always, when it's going good, like, the person is always more than happy to, like, do it your way.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:57Bill Maher?

  It's like, you know, maybe you don't wanna see the same movie and it's just, everyone is always picking up the check for the other person. Everyone's always, metaphorically, you know.

• 20:10Bill Maher?

  I'm sure you picked up your share of real checks with some of the losers you've gone out with. I mean, did you ever go out with someone who was richer than you? No. Okay, all right. But I'm saying metaphorically, picking up the check, you know what I'm saying? It's like, no, let me do it for you. That's when it's going good. When it's going bad, it's like, why don't I get my way on this? It's always your way. Like, why do we have to do it, and this is resentment? That you're doing things you don't wanna do.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:39Bill Maher?

  For the other person, and it's like, you know, and it winds up this horse trading of, well, I did this for you, then you do this for me.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Fucking horse trading.

• 20:48Bill Maher?

  And, so my view of relationships is, and I took a long time to learn this, but once you get into change territory, you're already doomed yourself. The secret is finding someone who doesn't want you to change, and won't ask you to change, and you the same of them. That's how, if you want the short, skinny version, I think, of how, what is gonna work and what's not, long run, that's gotta be it. Anything else is, is the, the, the, the fuse is lit and the time bomb is ticking. Because we don't, we don't wanna change who we are. If you're healthy, you like who you are. You should love who you are. I love you even more now, because, I mean, I never talked to you like this.

• 21:33Bill Maher?

  You're, you're, you're a little different than you are on TV.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:37Bill Maher?

  And, and, you know, really, like, uh...

• 21:42Bill Maher?

  You know, I like it that there's no people pleasing here. You know, you're just telling me the truth, which is great, which is what I'm going for.

• 21:52Bill Maher?

  And that's, you know, I don't think anybody should ask you to change. And I don't think at 50, it's a smart move anyway, because you're kind of set, you know. Whenever somebody asks me, what are your New Year's resolutions? I always say, to do the ones from 1975. Because I basically, you know, I've tried to like address her. Some things are just baked in the cake. You know, right? Anyway, I see I'm somehow.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  No, it's so good.

• 22:25Bill Maher?

  If you're just tuning in, I didn't beat her up. They'll just cut this and then AI will be like, Bill Maher beat her up and she was crying.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  You have a box of tissues.

• 22:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  I bet they're not for crying.

• 22:42Bill Maher?

  Well, sometimes I cry with laughter. Sometimes I'm laughing so hard, snot blows out of my nose.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  It's my favorite thing in the world. I mean, I.

• 22:52Bill Maher?

  Sometimes that happens. We have a whole reel of that happening.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Oh, fucking spit takes is the greatest thing in the world. It's up there with orgasm. It really is.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  Cut, print, moving on.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Did you like?

• 23:11Bill Maher?

  See, I love, you set me up for a great laugh. I love doing that. We're talking about giving and, you know, as opposed to like. What?

• 23:19Speaker 03

  That was genuine.

• 23:20Bill Maher?

  But I'm serious. Like, I love being the straight man. Martin Short did his Jiminy Glick character on my show last year to look. And like, all I did was just, you know, play the exact straight man you need to be with Jiminy Glick. You don't want to compete. I've seen people try to do that. And it's like, just let, let the fucking, let the plumber fix the sink here.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Except for, I don't know if I could fully be the straight man. I think I.

• 23:48Bill Maher?

  I love it.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  I, but I love it too. I don't know if I can do it all. I don't know how to really do it, but I love it. I love all the things I can't be, or anybody can't be. That's why I love comedians so much, because they have the most. bravery with actual medicine. They are medicinal to me.

• 24:10Bill Maher?

  Well, yes.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Because the laughter, the state of the physical realm in laughter, to me, is as good as the orgasm.

• 24:19Bill Maher?

  I agree with that.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Oh, fantastic.

• 24:21Bill Maher?

  And they're the only two, the reason why orgasm and laughter are the best is because they're the most, they're the most honest. They're, they're, you can't, love is ta, I'm sorry, it's the greatest, but it's also tainted with feelings and prejudice.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Love is, is up there with people pleaser. It's been, it's been beaten down and fucked over and fucked up and so

• 24:44Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  turned inside out in pretzel that we no longer know.

• 24:48Bill Maher?

  You could, you could like not know, am I in love? Is it love? You don't say that about an orgasm, right? You don't say, was that, I mean, if you do, you're doing it wrong. So, and a laugh is totally involuntary.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:02Bill Maher?

  That's why I love making the people who like don't agree with me from the get, if I make them laugh about something, I know they're like, oh, there must be some truth in that because I wasn't, I didn't want to laugh. And yet, there it is.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:15Bill Maher?

  So orgasm and laughter, I agree.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 25:18Bill Maher?

  If you could just live on that.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  My next tattoo.

• 25:21Bill Maher?

  AI, how can I? How can I make my life?

• 25:24Speaker 03

  By the way, artificial, they can't. I mean, well, I mean, they could be adjacent to orgasm and laughter. They can aid in it, but they can't give it to you.

• 25:39Bill Maher?

  Right. Can you, can you have an orgasm if you're not in love?

• 25:45Speaker 03

  I mean, can't everybody?

• 25:47Bill Maher?

  What are you doing Tuesday?

• 26:00Speaker 03

  I'm like.

• 26:00Bill Maher?

  No, not everybody.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  I was about to be like, it's Tuesday. And then I was like, wait, what fucking day of the week is it? What day is it?

• 26:08Bill Maher?

  No, not everybody can. Have you ever met a Christian? They can't.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Um.

• 26:14Bill Maher?

  Or so they say. Of course, they're probably the worst, the most, like, those types, right?

• 26:19Speaker 03

  I, yeah, I think everybody, when I say everybody, I love everybody and everyone is equally capable of crazy. It's like, it is, I do have the very equal playing field gene.

• 26:34Bill Maher?

  But I don't know if they have equal capacity for orgasm.

• 26:40Bill Maher?

  I think some people need.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  You would have to individually go through each person and ask them how powerful there was.

• 26:46Bill Maher?

  I think there's a type of person, let's just call them Christian conservatives, Christian conservatives. Uh, you know, but people voted for Trump and, uh, you know, which doesn't make you bad.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  No.

• 27:01Bill Maher?

  Uh, and, uh, who go to church and very often, you know, there's a big movement now of, you know, like, let's have more babies, you know, and also, but also like they, those types, they tend to like mate for life or so they say. But, you know, the Bible, they go by their, so like, it's like, you have to be able to have an orgasm with this one person.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:27Bill Maher?

  Who's, you know, that's gotta get old. You're married at 18.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:32Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  I wrote this, um, thing and I gave it to someone right before they were gonna get married and I got disinvited to the wedding.

• 27:43Bill Maher?

  Seriously?

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Seriously.

• 27:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  And it was like this essay about, um, you know, how marriage, when people used to have a 30-year lifespan or their closest conversation was, you know, a very long horse ride away.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Marriage was such a different thing.

• 28:07Bill Maher?

  Such a different thing, yes.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  And so I shared it with them and got disinvited to their wedding. And I was like, you know, man, you are too sensitive. You took that personally. I just think we should be letting people off the hook.

• 28:23Bill Maher?

  But that shows how delicate it is, like getting married and how much people know. Because that it could be bad. Because just what your thing suggested to her, why it freaked.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  It was a him.

• 28:37Bill Maher?

  Him, why it freaked him out was this idea that, yes, marriage was easy, as you say. What it was like.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  I don't think it was easy, but it was like, it was all you had.

• 28:50Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  It was everything.

• 28:53Bill Maher?

  I met a girl in the next prairie.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Wait, can we go sit in the other chairs? Or should we stay here? If not, if we're staying here.

• 28:59Bill Maher?

  If you're not comfortable, let's move.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  OK, here.

• 29:02Bill Maher?

  No.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  There we go. No.

• 29:03Bill Maher?

  You sure?

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, now I'm perfect.

• 29:06Bill Maher?

  All right. You know, if it was like, well, I might meet somebody at the butter churning, you know? Pull up a barrel.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:18Bill Maher?

  But now.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  I didn't know where you're going. And I love a butter churn, so my mind went way off into the butter churn land. And then you brought me back with, if all you have is the butter churn, marriage looks great.

• 29:30Bill Maher?

  And now it's the opposite. We're just bombarded with images and people, especially if you live in an urban area. You know, you just, and people are old hoes now. You know, no one is like holding out except those Christian ladies. And they're not around.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  I have this thing that I really want to do. And the working title is promise ceremony. But what I'd like to do is open up a cottage industry. And people go and they have all the people, they have the weekend. You wear the dress, you do the rituals with all your friends. And there's even a ring you get at that promise ceremony. And you go up to that mountaintop and. You have, you know, that moment in front of everyone. And you have this fantastic party and brunch the next day.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  And you do it in a way that is so aspirational for you and your life and the people that you want to

• 30:37Bill Maher?

  But there's nothing

• 30:37Speaker 03

  Show them your pride.

• 30:38Bill Maher?

  But there's nothing legally binding. That's the good part. So you're saying you want the emotional experience

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:45Bill Maher?

  Of all that bullshit.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  And Yeah. Well, I want it to be really fucking funny. I want it to be like, by the way, I know how to throw a great soiree. It'll be a fucking fantastic, like, time. Um, because it's like, and it's an excuse to be together. And there are people out there in the world that you're like, somehow you had my back this whole time. And I'd like you to see that I'm OK now. And some people, you're like, I love you so much. I don't, I love sharing things with you. I want you to be a part of this moment. There are all the good intentions and all the, you know, pomp and circumstance, which also has gotten a bad rap.

• 31:26Bill Maher?

  What was, what was your best marriage? Like, you had three. One was like very brief.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Well, one, I'm probably gonna get arrested because it was, you know, we really just kind of, you know.

• 31:38Bill Maher?

  You were children, right?

• 31:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:39Bill Maher?

  You were just

• 31:40Speaker 03

  And it was just

• 31:41Bill Maher?

  It was like a Britney Spears moment.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  It, oh, Britney. Um, I don't say that about Britney. I'm like, oh, yeah, sure.

• 31:47Bill Maher?

  No, I know, but she got married for like two seconds once.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Right in Vegas that one night.

• 31:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know what their agreement was.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  I know what mine was. And I, Britney is someone I could probably laugh with. And I could be like, this was what was going on with me this night. And she could tell me what was going on with her that night. And I don't know if they line up, but they were both highly impulsive.

• 32:16Bill Maher?

  Do you know her? Do you know her? Um. You would be a great mentor.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  I, I, this much.

• 32:22Bill Maher?

  I'm watching Justin Bieber these days on TMZ Go Nuts. And I'm like, you know, I bet you if I could sit with this kid. For 25 minutes.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:32Bill Maher?

  I could straighten up him up. Not that, you know, you can.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  He would have to be ready and it would, it would be like where.

• 32:39Bill Maher?

  I think nobody tells people in that, I mean, you know this, as a child star.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  I was speaking.

• 32:44Bill Maher?

  Nobody says no or tells you the truth because they just want to curry your favor. They just want to give you ice cream because you, you asking for ice cream, again metaphorically, or maybe really.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  There's the thing, and I, I had this realization, I'm, I'm gonna cry again, because, you know.

• 33:02Bill Maher?

  I got the box.

• 33:07Bill Maher?

  That's what's called being a gentleman. You have the box of.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Thank you, it matches my outfit.

• 33:14Bill Maher?

  No, I needed one too. It's a, it's a three hanky movie.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  You gotta be able to like laugh and cry about it.

• 33:24Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Someone said laughter and crying are twins once.

• 33:27Bill Maher?

  They are.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  And it, I was like, that's it.

• 33:29Bill Maher?

  Tears.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  They're inextricably linked.

• 33:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  And they're the same physical motion and they're totally on a seesaw together going up and down. The thing about all the people we're referencing, who I don't posture to know, I, I really don't know them. I've had some interactions with them.

• 33:49Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  You know, and somebody could be like, oh, you're at Britney Spears wedding, what are you talking about, you don't know her. That's not the point.

• 34:30Speaker 01

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• 34:59Speaker 05

  Like-

• 34:59Bill Maher?

  You were?

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, actually.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  It's that I don't fucking want to sit here and talk like I understand them, know them, or have privy information about them. I hate that. That's not what I'm gonna do.

• 35:19Bill Maher?

  Okay, but you do share something with them that so few of us share.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  And that's what I'm gonna share with you right now. That's what I'm gonna share with you right now. There-

• 35:30Bill Maher?

  It's a club you're in, like, small.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  There is a lifetime of your most tender ages, going through the toughest stuff. What do people expect? Are you kidding me?

• 35:46Bill Maher?

  I think it's a miracle-

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Let them be, like, it's hard. It is hard to go through that stuff. And it lives with you for a very long time, until maybe you work so hard on yourself and you hit 50 and you say, "I'm done. I'm ready to move on to another era that doesn't include all of that heaviness." But until that point, it's a miracle I got here. Most people don't, because it's too much for people at those ages.

• 36:15Bill Maher?

  I hope you give yourself a little credit for the triumph of being so sane. And trust me, I'm the one guy who doesn't like-

• 36:22Speaker 03

  Took a lot of work.

• 36:23Bill Maher?

  Who pretend people are sane when they're-

• 36:26Speaker 03

  No, I know.

• 36:26Bill Maher?

  So when I say you're sane, you're sane.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  I know your litmus test.

• 36:30Bill Maher?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  I appreciate that. That is a great compliment.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  I've talked to so many people-

• 36:35Speaker 03

  I love your humor and your intellect. So, thank you.

• 36:38Bill Maher?

  So many people who are, have much less fucked up things in their past than you, who are so much more distracted, not on point, or say, you know, this happens all the time on this show, whatever it is, podcast. Where like, somebody will be like, oh, they're great. I don't, I get along with everybody. I just love talking to people when I'm high. I can do it with anybody.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 37:00Bill Maher?

  That's called club random. That's what it's, you know, I can do the Hawk Tuohag Girl.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:04Bill Maher?

  And David Mamet the next day. And I love that.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:07Bill Maher?

  Uh, but very often someone's on and they're nuts, a dumb person. And we're agreeing on a lot of things. And then they just say one thing that's like, oh, they didn't land on the moon?

• 37:22Bill Maher?

  You know what I mean? And you're like, and I see none of that with you. Like, like there's nothing that's like, oh, well, sure. She was, you know, drunk at seven. Of course she's gonna, you know, think the chemtrails. But no, you're all good. You, you, maybe that made you saner in a way, you know?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  I did the work.

• 37:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  I do the work.

• 37:45Bill Maher?

  What is the work?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  It takes a lot of work.

• 37:47Bill Maher?

  Well, like, put some meat on that bone. I don't know, cause I, cause I don't.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  I'll put some fucking meat on that bone. That bone is gonna snap in half.

• 37:57Bill Maher?

  Cause I don't know if I've ever done the work or wanted to.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  All right, here's a question.

• 38:02Bill Maher?

  I don't wanna do the work.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Do you have a chimney cricket on your shoulder that sits there and goes, that fucking thing you do that you won't stop doing is the fucking worst thing and it makes you hate yourself?

• 38:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but again, because I know I can't, I haven't done the New Year's resolutions from 1975.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  I write myself a postcard every year.

• 38:22Bill Maher?

  I'm just not gonna like, kill myself about the things I didn't get right. You know?

• 38:27Speaker 03

  It's not the things you didn't get right. It's the thing you're still doing that you refuse to let go of. You will not break that habit. And you give yourself permission to hate yourself and beat up on yourself.

• 38:38Bill Maher?

  Okay, this is a good example.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  That's the work to me.

• 38:40Bill Maher?

  Like, like this is a great example of that. Like, 1975 resolution.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Smoke less pot.

• 38:47Bill Maher?

  Well, I was just beginning to smoke pot. But yeah, like, like the things you think you need to be high on pot to do, you can do sober. That was a resolution.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, but are they as fun?

• 38:57Bill Maher?

  No, exactly. Fifty years.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Fuck that resolution.

• 39:02Bill Maher?

  It's just like, yes.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  And also, maybe this is how I like being in the world.

• 39:07Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  I mean, they've been, people have been doing stuff to alter themselves since they found the first leaf in the caves. Man has always needed a little something, something.

• 39:20Bill Maher?

  Wine, Wine, Women and Song became Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 39:26Bill Maher?

  But it's the same.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  And Taco Tuesday.

• 39:28Bill Maher?

  Right, and now we have even.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  They literally, they, they have been wanting to get off and get loose since the dawn of human beings.

• 39:39Bill Maher?

  And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, my life would be so diminished without marijuana.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:45Bill Maher?

  I think, I feel like we would not even be sitting here. I wouldn't own your own house. I'd be in a two-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys. Seriously. We all have our demons and.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  I, I want, I want to live in a world and I, I'm pretty not naive at this point to believe it's not possible, but I, I ideally still keep wishing that we could live in a world where we would just allow each other to be who, I mean, we have to, of course, encourage and figure out how to be our best selves. That's the work.

• 40:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  But I, I don't remember the last time I thrived under abusive scrutiny. And I, I wish that for everybody to have more encouragement to be their best selves.

• 40:41Bill Maher?

  You mean like social media abusive scrutiny? That kind of stuff?

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I mean, I had a version of that when I was 13 years old. So like.

• 40:49Bill Maher?

  Even before we had phones.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I know what 13-year-olds feel like when they're feeling that. And I feel like that's.

• 40:58Bill Maher?

  And they kill themselves sometimes.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  It's the scariest thing. That's why we should not behave this way.

• 41:04Bill Maher?

  I contemplated suicide when I was like 19.

• 41:08Bill Maher?

  I don't think I was.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Do you remember why?

• 41:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, cuz I couldn't get laid cuz I went to Cornell. Causes you to wanna kill yourself. There's that. Thank you, Alma Mata.

• 41:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that was it, really. But I, you know, put an intellectual sheen on the whole thing and made it up because I was I was doing great intellectually, like I loved the courses and I mean, it was, it kept me going.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:33Bill Maher?

  But yeah, but that's really what it was. If one girl had shown any interest or I knew how to get one, trust me, my depression would have lifted immediately.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  That was like, that was the endorphins that would have done it for you.

• 41:46Bill Maher?

  Right. Well, you know.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  And now?

• 41:50Bill Maher?

  Now what?

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Now, if somebody says they don't wanna sleep with you, do you wanna commit suicide?

• 42:00Bill Maher?

  Uh, no, no. No, I wouldn't even ask.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  And do you think that you ever really did have a time where you, like, in all seriousness, were like, I don't wanna be here on this earth?

• 42:14Bill Maher?

  I thought so at that period. And I've had many times when I was depressed, I mean, getting dumped in high school. I mean, you know, it was a year of waking up every day with a knot in my stomach from the moment I woke up to the, there's nothing worse in life, except maybe physical pain, that I luckily haven't had to that degree, than like wanting the thing you want more than anything that you think is the only key to your happiness is another person who does not want you, probably cuz you fucked it up. And that's, you know, that's worse than someone who you never had a thing with. Maybe you could convince them and tell, but once you like turn the key and the, I would say women have a pilot light in the back, like you can let it go down,

• 42:58Bill Maher?

  but once you turn the pilot light off.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  Oh my God, that's my theory.

• 43:02Bill Maher?

  Cannot be relit.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  Oh my God, I talk with that with my girlfriends all the time.

• 43:06Bill Maher?

  The ick, you know.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, the ick.

• 43:08Bill Maher?

  You give the ick to that degree.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  I visualize it as you go to like the pool and you like put bricks on your feet and you go in and you sit there and under the water, like looking up at the surface. And at that very last gasp, when it's like, if you stand there one more second, you're gonna die. You release yourself. You come up to the surface, you get out of the pool and you are so done, you'll never look back. And anything having to do with that person is the icks. It's all a metaphor.

• 43:38Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 43:40Bill Maher?

  But some people do things like this.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Oh, oh God, I was speaking metaphorically. Like, we, we, we go, we, we almost go to the last ends of our own personal depths for someone. And it's like, once you turn that pilot light, once you decide to get out of that pool, once you decide for your own salvation, it's like, the iron door, it's closed forever. I think that about women.

• 44:05Bill Maher?

  And it happens a lot to women because guys, they do hide in the weeds and then become something different. I've just heard the story too many times from women, like, very often it happens after the marriage.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  Hide in the weeds. Oh, God, that's so terrifying and so apt and such a great visual.

• 44:22Bill Maher?

  I gotta say, you know, a lot of things, you criticize me, like, commitment folk, they call them lots of, sure, I never got married, call me whatever name you want. One good thing about me, while they would also say it's a bad thing, is I don't change. I never was that guy who hide in the weeds. I'm not gonna turn into a monster. I never did. I'm not gonna be fundamentally different. I'm also not ever gonna become a boyfriend, husband, or father. So, that's me. Always the same. But that's better than the hide in the weeds. I've heard this story so many times.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree.

• 44:53Bill Maher?

  He became this guy I didn't know. Where was this guy? He was hiding in the weeds the whole time. It's gotta feel so awful. That he, oh, he never really, he just wanted to get me into this power position where he could like, dominate me like this. Right?

• 45:11Speaker 03

  That's sad that, that's a universal experience. I don't want that to be people's reality.

• 45:19Bill Maher?

  No, I mean.

• 45:20Speaker 03

  Which is why I've been single for nine years. Like, I just, I can't even, I can't fucking bother with it. I, I can't, it's, I can't spend my time anymore, ever again, with a weed walker.

• 45:35Bill Maher?

  What happened?

• 45:38Bill Maher?

  What happened to the last one? I thought that was you married a civilian, which is very brave in Hollywood. Very, very brave. But like, you're such a big star. You know, I think that makes sense. Because two stars, it's just too much starring. You know?

• 45:56Speaker 03

  I imagine you either want you're OK with that or there are people who like do struggle with it because it is like a lot, you know? Whether it's two on two or one on one.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  But that's my kid's dad. He will always, I will only like just speak the best. And I love his wife and I'm.

• 46:23Bill Maher?

  Always remarried.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Yep. And I, it's like my kids I'll talk about all day. I don't want to put them out there. I want to be very protective of them, very sacred.

• 46:34Bill Maher?

  Oh, I think you are. I don't know anything about them.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 46:36Bill Maher?

  I've never seen anything.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Thank you. I have been so purposeful with that and yet not tried to be a freak about it to anyone or them. It's like this is who I am and what I do. And we all accept that as a family. My kids know that they are first in every single way. And this is like a temple. My beautiful family that I never knew I would get to have this experience. It's so triggering and so healing and so incredible. And what I'm trying to.

• 47:13Bill Maher?

  What is?

• 47:14Speaker 03

  Having kids, having, being a part of these two girls' lives. I got to carry them. I love them more than I've ever known what love could be. It's a different kind of love than anything I've ever experienced.

• 47:27Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 47:28Speaker 03

  There is no comparison. There's no math.

• 47:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  I, from my experience, I know people who are like, I love my partner equal to my children. And I'm like, I, you know, unfortunately, we split up. I didn't have that experience. So like. I just know my experience with these two girls, and it is a love that is the coolest thing I've ever experienced in my human existence.

• 47:50Bill Maher?

  I don't, as we know, have kids, but even I get that. Even I get that.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  It's so cool.

• 47:56Bill Maher?

  Because first of all, it's obvious. It's just different than it's came out of you.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  It's so wild.

• 48:02Bill Maher?

  It's not like me.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  It's fucking umbilical.

• 48:04Bill Maher?

  It's not like meeting someone.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  No, you are tethered to that human being.

• 48:08Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  When I'm holding them, I'm like, I am inside my body.

• 48:12Bill Maher?

  They're kind of you point 2.0. They're mini me. I mean, there's this like, there's a love you could, if you were a cynic, could say this semi selfish, because it's kind of like you're loving you.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  No one understands codependency better than I, in the sense of like, I started working on that when I was 13 years old and institutionalized. My love for them is not codependent. It is inspired. They make me my best self. And right now, even at 11 and 13, I'm really dialed into, a lot of things are from my own experience, and that's where my fear is coming from, that I am not my mom, they are not me, and that I have to be in a constant practice of being age appropriate, but being really fucking real with them about the world and life, and whether it has anything to do with my experience, but just all of it.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Like, I'm so candid with them, and I'm so affectionate and so loving, and it's the best.

• 49:13Bill Maher?

  What about the discipline side of it?

• 49:15Speaker 03

  I'm, I have found my voice, which was amazing.

• 49:19Bill Maher?

  The other side of it is easy. It's easy to be loving and your friend. It's hard to be the bad guy.

• 49:25Speaker 03

  It took me years.

• 49:26Bill Maher?

  That's what kids need, and who would know?

• 49:28Speaker 03

  And when they're babies and toddlers, everyone's like, well, you know, boundaries and discipline. And I'm like... I don't know what you're talking about because I didn't have those things. And I feel like I'm dealing with very irrational people, so.

• 49:40Bill Maher?

  So you're saying there shouldn't be boundaries and discipline?

• 49:42Speaker 03

  No, yes, now they're the best, it turns out. I thought, talk about fucking Technicolor and Wizard of Oz. Boundaries and discipline are awesome.

• 49:51Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay, good.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Love them.

• 49:54Bill Maher?

  No, no, I, good.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  But even when my kids were born, I didn't have that accessible. I really had to do the work to like, learn it and figure it out. And when you have babies and toddlers, they're so wild.

• 50:06Bill Maher?

  What are they like?

• 50:07Speaker 03

  I mean, seriously?

• 50:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah, seriously, how would I know?

• 50:10Speaker 03

  It's.

• 50:10Bill Maher?

  I've never even touched a baby.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  It's.

• 50:12Bill Maher?

  I hate babies. Kids, kids I can like, talk to for a little bit. They can be amusing if they're not like, disgusting or the, you know, too young. But babies, I, I just, you know. It's like some people don't like fur, they don't like dogs, you know? I don't like babies, but, but, and also they're just really a mess of, I mean, for anal retentive like me, the snot and the puke.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:37Bill Maher?

  The shit is like, I, that's, and that's just something that was born, I was born that way.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  I think a lot of males were.

• 50:44Bill Maher?

  No, I think a lot of them are just lazy.

• 50:46Speaker 03

  I, yeah.

• 50:47Bill Maher?

  And they can make the woman do it because they were hiding in the weeds, okay?

• 50:52Bill Maher?

  But really, with me, it's, it's really about the shit. And the snot and the like.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  I'm telling you.

• 50:58Bill Maher?

  I mean, I carry a box of Kleenex. Come on, you can't even.

• 51:02Speaker 03

  By the way, guess what? You could totally have children. This is, if you have this.

• 51:06Bill Maher?

  That's all I need.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  You're so good.

• 51:10Bill Maher?

  I know, but I don't want to.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  This is what would be in your baby bag. Just, you could bring the tissues. The tissues don't have to go, which is so nice.

• 51:19Bill Maher?

  Can I share something with you?

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:21Bill Maher?

  Okay, no, I'm kidding.

• 51:23Speaker 03

  And this is why I love you though, because you talk about like, your sphincter fucking puckers before you say it, because you're like, oh god, what the fuck?

• 51:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  Is gonna come at me for making this joke? And you're one of my favorite people and why I need to like, watch you on the reg is because I need someone who says that. Because it is insane that we just take each other down and we're looking for it and we're waiting for it. And it's like a dog at a table, waiting for that piece of food to fall. And then it's like, ah, all over the fucking linoleum floor. Because, yes, that's something.

• 51:59Bill Maher?

  Go back to my sphincter.

• 52:03Bill Maher?

  No, I.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  It's like, oh, God, I'm gonna say something, oh, I can't, I fuck you, I can't take it.

• 52:10Bill Maher?

  This little rage that you're vomiting, I swear to God, I must have done it like ten times when we usually shoot over there, but the same thing happened to me on that exact subject of judgy people.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 52:24Bill Maher?

  Of the snitches and bitches, who rule society.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:33Bill Maher?

  Snitches and bitches, people with nothing better to do than hit send, and then they think they're some kind of warriors, social justice warriors, and you're just a bunch of fucking gossips, you don't give a shit about anything and getting a scalp on the wall.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:49Bill Maher?

  And, right? And I, I share your disdain. You have no, I don't have.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  I, I, everybody, if you're, if you're a part of that, I just feel like it's just robbing of yours and that other person's time.

• 53:09Bill Maher?

  We don't like you.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  It's just too hard to live that way.

• 53:12Bill Maher?

  Isn't that enough for you? We don't like you, and we're cooler than you, and we don't like you. Shape up.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 53:25Bill Maher?

  Bitches, snitches.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Snitches and bitches, yeah, it, it, no, no.

• 53:31Bill Maher?

  But you know what?

• 53:31Speaker 03

  But when I'm saying that, I'm also talking for every human being on the planet. I never think I'm, you know, anything about myself when I say that. It's like, the human experience, why are we doing that to each other? That's what fucking just destroys me, but I wanna come out of the ashes of that and just keep carrying on and trying to be nicer and happier and like, trying to not allow that poison in.

• 54:02Bill Maher?

  I think I can answer the question of why are we doing it? Part of it is because the technology changes, changed, and usually, society follows technology. I know people like to give themselves a lot of credit for, for ruling the world, they really don't, and technology changes and then they adapt. And once the smartphone came in and social media, people were able to indulge their worst qualities. Uh, being sneaky, being fake.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:36Bill Maher?

  Being bullies, being bitches, all the shit that we're talking about. They were able to indulge that in a way where they didn't face any repercussions for it. It was different if you had to like, like say it to somebody's face. But now it can all be kind of done behind this. And so it brings out the worst in human nature. That you can just anonymously put something on the internet or just. What I fucking hate that they do is like, they know better about what I was saying. Uh, but they know that if they just put it in a click, uh, in a, in a bit that people click for 20 seconds.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  I was just talking about that this morning.

• 55:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they can just, they can present and it's like, you, you saw the whole thing. You knew that, you know, this doesn't represent it, but you know, this will get your click. You're just a fucking.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  That's the dog waiting at the table for the food to fall. It's, I've never pictured it that way in my life until this moment. But it's, it's, it, it, people are waiting for that, that fuel, that sustenance, that treat in their mouth to just go hog wild on people. And it's an unfortunate way to live. Who wants to fucking live in the, I'm waiting to get the gotcha state? Like, that is so, such a bummer.

• 55:58Bill Maher?

  People really.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  Terrible waste of, of time.

• 56:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they, they want to, look, especially with people who are prominent, they, they perceive them and they're right.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  But everyone, it's like, that's the thing. Technology, I agree, it changes and dictates. However, it became also every single person's problem.

• 56:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  You know?

• 56:21Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, the, the kid who is.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  It's not reserved for anyone. There, this almost isn't super like elitist to me in the sense that.

• 56:29Bill Maher?

  No, no, the kid, the.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  That everyone now has this burden on their shoulder.

• 56:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Of being available for rudeness and a punishing abusive behavior. And I just think the only defense we have is to like turn away from that and not indulge.

• 56:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, it could in your own personal journey.

• 56:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  I'm gonna try for that.

• 56:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, we're not doing it.

• 56:59Bill Maher?

  We're kidding, we're good. We're the targets of it.

• 57:03Speaker 03

  Yes, that's true.

• 57:05Bill Maher?

  And we're just calling them out and saying, you know what? Why don't you do something more productive in your life? Like, maybe play piano in a whorehouse, something like that.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  But back to your earlier point, I'm more worried about the way it really does hurt people. Like, that's where I'm working from.

• 57:22Bill Maher?

  And it's not just celebrities. You think about the kid.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  I've been dealing with this my whole life. I'm like so far past it that I'm not even angry at anyone who does it. I've tried to ration with it and reason with it. I've learned that's probably not good anymore in this day and age. And, but I worry about it for every human. I beg and hope that people can learn to protect themselves from anything that any...

• 57:55Bill Maher?

  Did you see Adolescence?

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Of course I did.

• 57:57Bill Maher?

  Okay, I mean, big hit on Netflix.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I thought it would be a bigger tipping point, and it should be.

• 58:03Bill Maher?

  Well, if people don't know what it is about, I'll give you the just bottom line, why I thought it was great.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Stephen Graham, who is, it stars in it and co-produced it.

• 58:13Bill Maher?

  British, right.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Brilliant.

• 58:15Bill Maher?

  It is. But the takeaway I had, which was, I knew, but not to this visceral level, which is why art is so great, it puts it on a different level.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it can teach.

• 58:25Bill Maher?

  Was that, okay, it's about a guy, yes, a guy, a kid, you know, 13 or something, and he kills this girl, spoiler alert, but who gives a shit? And what we really find out is that the reason why he had this animosity toward this girl was it was all happening on the phone. And the adults who start to investigate don't even get it until it's explained to them by other kids why this incited this boy to this violence. It's like, you know, the adults had to be shown, you see this emoji. This is what, this is kind of shaming him.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:04Bill Maher?

  That they put this, and they, all the kids did it. And of course, they're all on this, this network that they talk on.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  There's a language in, in letters and emojis and words that we don't know.

• 59:15Bill Maher?

  Right. And, and when it shamed this boy, that's, no, we're not justifying what he did, but that's the motivation. And that is something people really need to pay attention to. That idea that your kids are talking and hurting each other on this thing and with this language you don't know. It's like they're doing it in Chinese and you don't speak Chinese.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 59:39Bill Maher?

  Now, your kids are 11 and 13. You, this has to be on your mind.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  It's everything I think about all the time. I've written, I've written pieces about it. And I'm, I don't really, even though weirdly, I, I guess someone could say you're out there every day. I do not share a lot of my opinions because

• 1:00:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  I grew up also in a time where I think people were, came off so soapboxy for being behind causes or speaking out. And I, I definitely was like, I'm just never gonna do that. And I was like,

• 1:00:14Bill Maher?

  It usually has the negative effect.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  I just was like, I, I, that's not my lane. I'm not gonna succeed there. I, I can't. Oh, can I have a mic?

• 1:00:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah, all, all the celebs came out for Kamala Harris. And it just made Americans go, oh, shut the fuck up. You know what? It's, it does, it's not changing how my life is because Beyonce or whoever it is wants me to vote for Kamala Harris.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  I, I do not feel safe putting myself out there in the sense of, I just don't think that it will do anybody any good and it won't be good for me. And it's just not good all around. So I'm just gonna stay in the sidelines over there about a lot of the things I think could be all.

• 1:00:54Bill Maher?

  As usual, grasshopper. You are exactly right. You're, you're, you're, yeah, you're so sane. You know, you're so like, right, that's exactly right. It won't help. It might even hurt.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Bill Maher?

  And you don't need it.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Bill Maher?

  You know, you don't owe the world your, there are people who get shamed, you know, for not being out there enough with your, they used to do with the Michael Jordan. Why don't you speak out? It's like, I'm a basketball player. I don't have to speak. It's just not my thing. I wouldn't be good at it. I don't, I just wanted to just live my life. Isn't that enough?

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  Sometimes.

• 1:01:29Bill Maher?

  And it is.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  My therapist said this one thing one time. He, it was about a certain circumstance and I'm gonna apply it here. No good will come of this.

• 1:01:41Bill Maher?

  You need a therapist to tell you that? Jesus Christ.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  God, apparently I fucking do. Um, but.

• 1:01:47Bill Maher?

  Is that part of the work? A therapist?

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I don't even like to call the man I work with a therapist 'cause I think it's belittling, 'cause it's not a good enough word. He's so fucking smart and interesting and profound and dynamic and just incredible.

• 1:02:03Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  He's changed my life so much.

• 1:02:06Bill Maher?

  Really? Is that true?

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  He's one of the safe people.

• 1:02:08Bill Maher?

  So like, you hired a great friend?

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  I hired a great friend and my friends.

• 1:02:13Bill Maher?

  That's what I think of this.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Don't allow me to get away with shit.

• 1:02:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'll do it for free.

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  Cheers to that.

• 1:02:26Bill Maher?

  But that's great that you have this. How long have you been with this strength?

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Thirteen, fourteen, oh god, fourteen years?

• 1:02:34Bill Maher?

  And you're not.

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Almost fifteen.

• 1:02:35Bill Maher?

  And you're not cured yet. See, this is my thing with psychiatry. Maybe I'm wrong.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  No one's ever fucking cured.

• 1:02:41Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  But you get better and you need things less, or you might have times where you need things more.

• 1:02:47Bill Maher?

  Alright.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  There's so much therapy. By the way, this is like people pleasing, that's why I don't like calling him a therapist. It's, it's become a word that has so many connotations. There's so much baggage to it. It's not crisp anymore. It's like, you, you hear. Yes man and indulgence and all this shit. It's like going, would you?

• 1:03:06Bill Maher?

  I'm just telling you, as someone who like knows you now really well for an hour and like before that a little bit. I mean, look, I helped you burn your house down, all that, you know.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  That's right. You feel me, baby? You know where I'm coming from.

• 1:03:17Bill Maher?

  And I feel like you, you trust my opinion.

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  I do.

• 1:03:20Bill Maher?

  And I'm telling you, you don't need a shrink. Now, maybe you just like it, but I'm telling you like, you know, there's a certain person who was like, oh, yes, you do need to talk to somebody.

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  But what have you got ideas from someone that were so smart?

• 1:03:33Bill Maher?

  Oh, ideas are different.

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  That's what he is. He's an ideas person on how to live a better life.

• 1:03:39Bill Maher?

  That's why I hang out with Andy Dick.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  Now that is a way to a better life. Oh, my God, Andy Dick. That's, that's not just a good reference since the 90s, but I bet it's true. You were probably with him last night.

• 1:03:58Bill Maher?

  I was.

• 1:04:01Bill Maher?

  He can't, oh, I'm not gonna even tell this story. It wasn't even this house. That's so long ago, but he was at a party of mine.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  Did you, I mean, I, I feel like I wouldn't get in the time machine no matter what. Like, I just wouldn't.

• 1:04:17Bill Maher?

  I wouldn't either.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  I, I do miss a lot of how I grew up, though. I do miss our, our stuff and I, I, I wonder if it will come back around. Typewriters, globes, pens, paper, snail mail, stamps, you know? Not having cameras in our televisions. I don't want a fucking camera in my TV staring back at me. That is terrifying to me. Like, I want, I want a movement where people demand less invasiveness in their life and turn to a more soulful approach than it just being all tech.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  I really, really want that for myself and I, I'm glad I was brought up in a time that valued that. And maybe just because, as you said, if technology dictates society, that's just where we were, but that was such a sweet spot for me. Like, calling should be like the Macs.

• 1:05:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, I'm jealous of you because I feel the exact same way. But I feel like you being like an icon and a woman who like even young women are like, come on, that's the chick from Charlie's Angels or wherever they know you from. You can get away with that more like putting that idea out there. I feel like I'm just the curmudgeonly asshole who like I'm off this month, for example, from Real Time.

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:43Bill Maher?

  And big things happen. We bombed Iran and like the people.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  How bad do you want to go back into the studio and talk about it? Or are you able to go, okay, this is.

• 1:05:52Bill Maher?

  I'm on vacation. And while I'm on vacation, I'm not tweeting about it. I'm like, and I'm sure there are lots of people like.

• 1:05:59Speaker 03

  No good will come of it.

• 1:06:00Bill Maher?

  This is ridiculous that Bill Maher, you know, purports to be this voice of reason in America and tells so many people, you know, and he's influential this and but he's gonna be mute for a month? Yes, I am. You'll be fine.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Well, actually, that's.

• 1:06:15Bill Maher?

  And.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  People, it should, there, there should be a better balance of how this is all working. And there are people and companies that are, are really, right now, I, it's so clear that it's AI. That's the, that's the brass ring. And so as everybody goes to the mountaintop for that.

• 1:06:39Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  I, as a human being, would like to take a step back and figure out what of this is making me happier and what of this is really giving me a level of anxiety that is reducing my, not quality of life, my, my time here on this earth because it's, stress kills, like stress is so bad for you. It's a physical, like.

• 1:07:04Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  Stress is not just an unpleasant state.

• 1:07:06Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  It's detrimental.

• 1:07:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, it's scientifically proven.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  A hundred percent.

• 1:07:10Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:07:11Bill Maher?

  You can die of it, basically.

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:13Bill Maher?

  I mean, it will give you cancer or something.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:15Bill Maher?

  It is, if it's bad enough. And of course, it's like anybody, there are people who smoked into their 90s and it didn't kill them.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  You have no idea how much I romanticized Keith Richards my entire life. I'm like, he's fine. He's great. And he did everything he wanted to, exactly the way he wants to do.

• 1:07:34Bill Maher?

  Because genetics has a lot to do with it.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  That's the thing. I don't know what his genes are.

• 1:07:39Bill Maher?

  You know, you know what it is also? I've never once seen him talk. When he wasn't saying something that made him laugh, his own words, he's just, he laughs like after every sentence.

• 1:07:53Bill Maher?

  I remember once seeing the-

• 1:07:54Speaker 05

  Is that a liability or an asset?

• 1:07:56Bill Maher?

  I remember once seeing the Rolling Stones do a benefit concert for the environment. And he had, he has like one number in the show where he comes forward and he's gonna sing it. And he like, he's smoking and it just was so sexy. And he, and he's talking about like, oh, the environment, you know, he wasn't, he was high and-

• 1:08:16Speaker 05

  Of course, I gotta hope so.

• 1:08:18Bill Maher?

  We're here, we're here for the environment and we better do something 'cause, you know, even the Eskimos are feeling the pinch.

• 1:08:26Speaker 05

  That's what he said.

• 1:08:27Bill Maher?

  That's what, and then-

• 1:08:33Bill Maher?

  And then he laughed.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

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• 1:10:05Bill Maher?

  And I was like, oh, this guy just laughs a lot. And that's why he's living to a million without, you know. He doesn't even smoke anymore, I don't think.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no. I mean, good for him, of course.

• 1:10:18Bill Maher?

  That's right.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  Oh, and he's just maybe not wrapped up in some of the bullshit.

• 1:10:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I just think he knows he's playing with the house money.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that's why he's sort of...

• 1:10:32Bill Maher?

  But he wasn't even...

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  One of my heroes.

• 1:10:34Bill Maher?

  He's kind of thought of as like a longtime heroin addict. He wasn't a longtime heroin addict. He was an addict at a certain period, but it's like...

• 1:10:42Speaker 03

  And it's not the drugs that romanticize it. It's just that he seems to literally have gotten away with more than most human beings.

• 1:10:51Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes, absolutely.

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  And so I marvel at his constitution.

• 1:10:55Bill Maher?

  A completely charmed life.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:57Bill Maher?

  And he'd be the first to admit it.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. And when he got, when he was in a coconut tree?

• 1:11:03Bill Maher?

  Yes, a coconut fell on his head.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  I heard he was up in the tree. I don't know, but I just, he, that's, I was nice to know that's how he spends his time and I didn't want to...

• 1:11:13Bill Maher?

  I'm not going to say I 100% believe the coconut story.

• 1:11:19Bill Maher?

  It may have been a coconut. Or, you know, given his history, maybe, you know...

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  Right, right. You know, I never thought of that. I never questioned the coconut.

• 1:11:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, he was, I mean, he and Ron Wood would like force themselves to sort of like stay up sometimes for three or four days because, because lack of sleep is also a kind of drug at a certain point, which is a crazy thing to do.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:11:45Bill Maher?

  That's, you know...

• 1:11:46Speaker 03

  Just no. And yet, I'm sure that was exactly what I wanted to do at a certain point in my life. But now, no. Again, I wanna have a good time when the sun comes up. And I wanna get in bed when it goes down and turn it off.

• 1:12:00Bill Maher?

  But, I mean, you lived a life before. I mean, the first time I ever did any drug was nineteen. I was in college. I didn't do any drugs in high school. Not, we didn't drink. I was a loser, fucking sixties kids.

• 1:12:17Bill Maher?

  You, by nineteen, were like, you had done every drug.

• 1:12:21Speaker 03

  I had also like...

• 1:12:23Bill Maher?

  That's incredible to me because when I think about where my mind was at twelve.

• 1:12:31Bill Maher?

  I mean, my, my issues, my concerns, you know, were so basic. Like, to like, add a fog of drug-addledness to that.

• 1:12:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:44Bill Maher?

  Which I was barely coping with.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:47Bill Maher?

  You know? I remember the transition from, "We hate girls because that's how you are when you're ten."

• 1:12:53Speaker 03

  Being rejected.

• 1:12:54Bill Maher?

  No, no, when you're just like...

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Oh, literally, the cooties phase.

• 1:12:58Bill Maher?

  Well, the cooties phase. But then you're latent until puberty. Now, when I was a kid, and maybe it hap- I think it happens earlier now. Like, we were, when we were ten-year-old, eleven-year-old boys, we, again, cooties. Girls have cooties. And then some kids would be starting to break off. And you're, "Oh, you traitor. You like girls now."

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Bill Maher?

  So, when do I? And then I start having these feelings. And my, this is a, it sounds crazy and petty, but at that age, that's a huge decision and a huge moment. The idea that I would then have to deal with that high

• 1:13:38Bill Maher?

  is ridiculous. Ridiculous.

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was out in clubs, so partying and dancing really go well together. You know? Like, that, I was really, I, I, I loved going out to clubs. That was like my thing.

• 1:13:56Bill Maher?

  And adults didn't stop this.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  No. Crazy. It doesn't make any sense to me now.

• 1:14:03Bill Maher?

  I understand it. I mean, you were.

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  As far as like, now I'm an adult, I'm a parent now. It's like, it's all unfathomable, but that that's how adults allowed a kid to live their life.

• 1:14:14Bill Maher?

  But you'd think it would have, because it became public, you'd think it would have inspired some sort of law enforcement reaction to the people who were enabling a, not just one year below the age of 18, but like, like, middle school, middle schoolers at, you know, at Studio 54. That, like, it's amazing how different the eras are, like, today, that would not, I mean, I don't think you could get away with that today.

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  No, everybody saw it as like novel and cute back then. But now we live in this world that knows so much better, that it's so perfect, you can't fucking live up to it.

• 1:14:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

  That's the problem I have. I, I don't want that for people. It's impossible. There is no such thing as knowing what to do every second of your life. Like, no. Mine was an extreme case, of course.

• 1:15:09Bill Maher?

  Very extreme.

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  So extreme, so wild.

• 1:15:13Bill Maher?

  Well, I, I feel like your wild phase, there was, I mean, again, eras, when I do my eras tour.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21Bill Maher?

  The, you're, you know, like, you had the era of, like, I mean, even before you were born, because your family is famous.

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Bill Maher?

  As great actors, you know? And then child star, and then wild.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Don't know who they are as much now, but back when in the seventies, as a kid, it was a big deal, the Barry Moores.

• 1:15:39Bill Maher?

  Barry Moore name is legendary. And then, like, wild child phase.

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Bill Maher?

  Who are your celebrity friends? Like, who, who's your, who's your squad? You got a squad? You must have a squad.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  I mean, not really, I.

• 1:15:53Bill Maher?

  No? The Charlie's Angels girls, you know?

• 1:15:56Speaker 03

  That's, I, that's my squad.

• 1:15:58Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:15:58Speaker 03

  Oh, for real, real.

• 1:16:00Bill Maher?

  Oh, see, the fans love that. I love that. I love thinking that, like, our celebrity idols, they really like each other, and you know, it wasn't all just fake.

• 1:16:09Speaker 03

  We've seen each other through everything, birth, life, death, marriage, divorce, I mean, everything. No, those girls, in fact.

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  When they asked me like about the first guest on a talk show, you know, which is like ritualistically like a markation of like

• 1:16:29Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:16:30Speaker 03

  who you are, what you can do.

• 1:16:32Bill Maher?

  I know, so much pressure on that person.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  It is, I'm like, and usually it's a stranger. It's just a status thing. It's so weird and I was so tripped out by it. And I'm so not a star fucker that I was like, you guys, I don't, I know this is a thing. Obviously, I'm intelligent in that sense of like, I know how this game is played. I was on Carson at seven. Of course I fucking get it.

• 1:16:59Speaker 03

  But I would not capitulate. And I was like, you guys, we're in a pandemic. Let that be the benefit of buying me a little time. We're in unorthodox times. So in a weird way, let me be true to myself and let me figure this out without bullshit pressure of, as they say in Pretty Woman, the pressure of a name, you know? And so.

• 1:17:26Bill Maher?

  Why don't you ever have me on?

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  Would you come on?

• 1:17:29Bill Maher?

  You never asked me.

• 1:17:32Speaker 03

  I would love it. I mean, I.

• 1:17:34Bill Maher?

  Of course you're saying that now you're on the spot. You have to say it.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  Fuck that. The second, the first conversation I could have with you, I showed up for. This one.

• 1:17:42Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  And we should have, shame on both of us. Actually, fuck that.

• 1:17:46Bill Maher?

  Well, am I gonna invite myself?

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, by the way.

• 1:17:49Bill Maher?

  Who does that? That's gauche.

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  I don't know how to network. I'm not good at it. I'm not a like a.

• 1:17:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, like we don't have publicists. Have your, like, like you. My matter, come on. If you wanted me on your show, you could have just reached out. I would have done it.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm, I would love nothing more. I'm not great at playing the, like I, I try to and it feels so uncomfortable to me to like ask people. I don't ever want to burden them.

• 1:18:15Bill Maher?

  I'm never in New York, so don't worry about it.

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  Well, you should come to New York.

• 1:18:18Bill Maher?

  But next time I'm in New York.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  I'll show you New York. It's really fun.

• 1:18:22Bill Maher?

  I'd be, I, look.

• 1:18:23Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 1:18:24Bill Maher?

  I'm friendly with some of the ladies on The View and I love them, but like, I would do, like, that, that shows a lot. And I would, I think I'd rather.

• 1:18:33Speaker 03

  Joy came on our show and she literally had the best time. She's like, "What the fuck is going on here? No one comes to stop us." Like, no, no, I'm like, "Yeah, it's a playground." Like, it's so chill and fun. It's, I didn't want to do anything tropey or overtimed. I wanted to find something different there.

• 1:18:54Bill Maher?

  I mean, I know, I love Whoopi and Joy, those are the two I really know. And I did it like a year ago and I liked everybody, but like, I don't know if they're really,

• 1:19:06Bill Maher?

  at this moment, the best advertisement for women. I just, they, they just.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  It's just, it's a format, that show.

• 1:19:13Bill Maher?

  They say some things that are just, like, not helpful, like, say, to elections.

• 1:19:21Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's just, you know.

• 1:19:23Speaker 03

  What is it like being, cause I, I know so much about the news, politics, and I'm, I'm very obsessed with it.

• 1:19:34Bill Maher?

  You have a new mayor. That's very exciting in New York.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  Well, he's not, he's, he's gonna be able to be on the ballot. It's not done.

• 1:19:41Bill Maher?

  It's not done.

• 1:19:43Speaker 03

  And it's really caused quite a stir.

• 1:19:45Bill Maher?

  Well, sure, he's a communist. I mean, that's what it is. It's okay.

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  But like, I don't dare talk about politics and it's the thing I'm probably up on, one of the most subjects in my life. What is it like? And thank God you do it and you need to do it because you found a way of avoiding the no good could come of it, which a lot of people are stuck in that box unfortunately when they try to talk about.

• 1:20:13Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  Yes. Because you see all angles. You're you you are true. This is the thing I wrote to you that I love. You and I can't help but be ourselves.

• 1:20:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:20:26Speaker 03

  For better or worse. There is some fucked up thing that you and I have where we cannot not be ourselves.

• 1:20:33Bill Maher?

  I think it's an awesome thing. I see the the cake is half full.

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  I am what I am. I I will never forget, Bill. I got this focus group for the talk show that was one of the most demoralizing things I've ever read about all the things these people hated about me. And I literally just sat there and I was like, well, you know, shit. Uh, I don't know what to say other than I don't know how to not be myself. I can make a better show because I'm a producer, but I can't. You one should not get themselves in an identity crisis for others. Those others may never appear and they may disappear.

• 1:21:13Bill Maher?

  I don't know what this focus thing is, but you're I mean, it's universally acknowledged. You're a beloved person like I'm beloved by my fans for a good reason. I'm awesome at what I do and they love it. Uh, but like I'm not beloved by the country as a whole. If I threw out the first pitch at a game, there'll be a lot of boo in the stadium.

• 1:21:34Speaker 03

  But do you think?

• 1:21:35Bill Maher?

  But you are you universally beloved. So I don't know why you're obsessing about this like they.

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 1:21:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, OK.

• 1:21:42Speaker 03

  Do you think that maybe?

• 1:21:43Bill Maher?

  That nobody I can't think of anybody like more popular than you. Everybody.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:21:48Bill Maher?

  Yes, you have that because I think people.

• 1:21:51Speaker 03

  I know nothing about me.

• 1:21:52Bill Maher?

  I yes, like, I mean, I feel like you have a your image. And I must say, I share in it to a degree. It's sort of like a candle in the wind, you know? Remember the song?

• 1:22:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I still don't really understand what it means.

• 1:22:06Bill Maher?

  Well, like.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  The candle so bright the wind can't blow it out?

• 1:22:09Bill Maher?

  So vulnerable, the wind can.

• 1:22:13Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:22:16Bill Maher?

  That's what his song, the Marilyn Monroe song.

• 1:22:19Speaker 03

  That's what it meant the whole time.

• 1:22:21Bill Maher?

  I of course.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Oh, I never got that.

• 1:22:26Bill Maher?

  The Elton John song?

• 1:22:27Speaker 03

  Yes, that was then attributed to Princess Diana.

• 1:22:30Bill Maher?

  Yes, he rewrote, he rewrote it for her.

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  Yes, and sang it at her funeral.

• 1:22:34Bill Maher?

  Keith Richards, our hero.

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  Back to Keith.

• 1:22:36Bill Maher?

  Made fun of Elton John, and he said he only writes songs about dead blondes.

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  That's what he said?

• 1:22:43Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  Well, he clearly has no fear of anything, I think.

• 1:22:47Bill Maher?

  And then went, ah. And that's why he's alive, because he's funny.

• 1:22:52Speaker 03

  Because he's gone so far past his point of caring.

• 1:22:55Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  He is the epitome of no fucks given.

• 1:22:58Bill Maher?

  He only writes songs about dead blondes. Because I don't know why he was getting into a feud with Elton, although Elton does get into a lot of feuds, it seems.

• 1:23:05Speaker 03

  Oh, there's nothing more lose-lose than a public feud.

• 1:23:10Bill Maher?

  But what we were just talking about, it was so important to me.

• 1:23:12Speaker 03

  We were saying about how, that I'm vulnerable.

• 1:23:16Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes, you're a candle in the wind.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  Which I now understand what that is.

• 1:23:20Bill Maher?

  And that's how I feel like, and now I talk to you, I say you're much stronger than that. Like, I don't think about that view that way at all anymore.

• 1:23:27Speaker 03

  I was focused on the candle that won't go out.

• 1:23:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I feel like, oh, poor Drew, you know, she always gets, you know, she's like the...

• 1:23:34Speaker 03

  Oh, no, fuck that.

• 1:23:35Bill Maher?

  Right, like, you know, like, the marriage didn't work, and like, you know, they screwed her up as a child.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  Oh, God, shit happens.

• 1:23:43Bill Maher?

  I know, but this is like a, you know, like, your childhood is not just shit happens.

• 1:23:48Speaker 03

  No, I know, it's traumatizing, and believe me, raising two young girls, if you don't think that this gets brought up all the time now. I do need very much a week.

• 1:23:57Bill Maher?

  I do not see you anymore as a candle in the wind.

• 1:24:00Speaker 03

  No, I...

• 1:24:00Bill Maher?

  I feel like you're a flashlight that won't go out. You know, you're, you're not...

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  I guess I could even fathom something.

• 1:24:08Bill Maher?

  But I feel like America sees you that way. Like, they, like, oh, you know, they just, they want you to be happy. You're a child star we grew up with, and, you know, they want you to be happy, and they, you know, they're rooting for poor...

• 1:24:20Speaker 03

  You know what I really want? I want their happiness too. I'm not kidding.

• 1:24:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they get that about you.

• 1:24:25Speaker 03

  I really do.

• 1:24:26Bill Maher?

  That's one reason they like you.

• 1:24:27Speaker 03

  I want people to be happy. They deserve it. People really deserve.

• 1:24:32Bill Maher?

  Well, some don't.

• 1:24:34Speaker 03

  You're right, there are a few I don't understand why they could ever be so mean and cruel. I'll never understand it.

• 1:24:40Bill Maher?

  There's some bad people in the world.

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  That's where I'm vulnerable, is the awe and shock. But, no, I'm so glad that you know this about me. And I have to admit, things have really also... Crystallized for me in different ways in the last year especially.

• 1:25:01Bill Maher?

  Really, last year?

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I made a lot of big leaps in the last year.

• 1:25:07Bill Maher?

  Forty-nine. Now, I don't believe in numerology, but I did when I was younger. But I was all very into seven, so like I was very aware of everything when I was forty-nine. Maybe there's something to it.

• 1:25:18Speaker 03

  What is the sevens theory?

• 1:25:20Bill Maher?

  I don't know, but it's a sacred number throughout every culture. So seven times seven, forty-nine, is like a super... Like I remember I had a big dinner that year, not at fifty, but forty-nine. I was like, that was the year, but...

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  I think that might have been my year too. I don't think I would have, I didn't just hit fifty and all of a sudden things got better.

• 1:25:41Bill Maher?

  But what are these big changes? What are these big epiphanies from this year that you just said you had?

• 1:25:46Speaker 03

  Thank you for asking.

• 1:25:47Bill Maher?

  You just said it.

• 1:25:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, but you're, thank you for the, you know, quantification, clarification.

• 1:25:58Speaker 03

  I, I feel like, um...

• 1:26:04Speaker 03

  I feel very devoid of a fear that I've carried so closely with me my whole life.

• 1:26:16Bill Maher?

  What?

• 1:26:18Speaker 03

  I mean, it bled into everything.

• 1:26:20Bill Maher?

  What fear?

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  Hard to...

• 1:26:27Speaker 03

  Hard to give it a name, but I guess the, the feeling is maybe even harder to describe. It's, it's, um, the fear of getting in trouble.

• 1:26:42Bill Maher?

  With who, for what? Like, social media trouble, is what we were talking about?

• 1:26:47Speaker 03

  It's much like...

• 1:26:52Speaker 03

  If I was to go in micro, I don't know if I can even name a person, place, or thing that holds that power anymore.

• 1:27:03Speaker 03

  Throughout my life, I could have identified who I was, or who or what I was afraid of getting in trouble. But it is a feeling that I've had in me most of my life, probably as long as I can remember being on this planet.

• 1:27:18Bill Maher?

  But don't you have to like?

• 1:27:21Speaker 03

  And it's gone.

• 1:27:23Bill Maher?

  But don't you have to ask yourself, what kind of trouble, you know, like, what am I really afraid of? What is this trouble? Because I don't know what you're talking about. Like, what trouble and what would be the repercussions from getting into this type of trouble?

• 1:27:37Speaker 03

  Well, you know, in some ways, I could think, OK, when you get institutionalized when you're 13 years old, that's a big form of being in trouble.

• 1:27:48Bill Maher?

  That is taking detention to another level, yes.

• 1:27:53Speaker 03

  And I wasn't like in a nice place. I was in a really rough place for almost two years and then got emancipated when I was 14.

• 1:27:59Bill Maher?

  So you were in the nut house?

• 1:28:01Speaker 03

  Yes, very much so.

• 1:28:03Bill Maher?

  And who were your, who were the nuts around you? Were they truly nuts?

• 1:28:07Speaker 03

  The adults were because there was an adult ward. So, you know, you can picture.

• 1:28:11Bill Maher?

  Were you with them?

• 1:28:12Speaker 03

  We were integrated with them, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:28:15Bill Maher?

  There were other people your age?

• 1:28:16Speaker 03

  And then there were, there was a youth program also. And we all were living amongst each other.

• 1:28:21Bill Maher?

  They mixed the youth with the adults?

• 1:28:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was a small place, so you're in the hallway with everybody and in the great room.

• 1:28:30Bill Maher?

  Did you have your like?

• 1:28:31Speaker 03

  Great room.

• 1:28:31Bill Maher?

  Did you have your own room?

• 1:28:34Speaker 03

  No, nope. I had three beds to a room with adjoining bathroom, so really six girls.

• 1:28:39Bill Maher?

  Were they all your age or were they adults too?

• 1:28:42Speaker 03

  All my age, in the sleeping quarters, all my age.

• 1:28:46Bill Maher?

  Six girls.

• 1:28:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Bill Maher?

  Six prepubescent girls.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, who all had the same shit I did, which is just, you know.

• 1:28:53Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:28:53Speaker 03

  Just, yeah, I felt like everything was relative in there. People.

• 1:28:58Bill Maher?

  But they weren't really had the same thing. There weren't five other stars.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  That's where I learned they did. We were all in the same boat. We were all young. We had trauma and torture in our families. We were already, like, using to avoid the feelings of life, and we had all questioned whether we wanted to be on the earth. Those are the things we had in common. And somehow we fucked up so bad, we ended up in here. And all of that other shit didn't play into it.

• 1:29:27Bill Maher?

  But the other five, that those feelings didn't come from something in show business, right? Or did they?

• 1:29:33Speaker 03

  No, no, they weren't.

• 1:29:34Bill Maher?

  So you were the only show business one?

• 1:29:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:36Bill Maher?

  But, okay, but it's kind of the same.

• 1:29:38Speaker 03

  And around those parts, it was cool. It was like, everybody's got fucking problems. And it wasn't like rude or angry. It was just a fact. So it was very.

• 1:29:46Bill Maher?

  But you didn't feel like you really needed to be in the nut house, right? You, I mean, they put you there.

• 1:29:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Bill Maher?

  You would rather have dealt with it on the outside.

• 1:29:54Speaker 03

  No, I didn't. I was so grateful, like, in a weird way.

• 1:29:58Bill Maher?

  Like I said, you liked being there. You were glad they put you there.

• 1:30:02Speaker 03

  No, for the first six months, I threw riots every day. It was like a Wendy O. Williams movie, because of course, that's who I'm picturing, you know, fucking reform school.

• 1:30:10Bill Maher?

  She's not nuts at all. That was a, that's a scam. My boy Harvey Levin proved that.

• 1:30:15Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 1:30:16Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:30:17Speaker 03

  I don't really know her beyond her movies.

• 1:30:19Bill Maher?

  Well, I can, Wendy Williams?

• 1:30:21Speaker 03

  Wendy O. Williams.

• 1:30:22Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:30:23Speaker 03

  Sorry, I'm going reform school girls. I'm going all school.

• 1:30:26Bill Maher?

  I thought you meant Wendy Williams.

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. Wendy O. Williams, the blonde who was like all about mayhem and like, fuck you, and like, looked amazing doing it, and was like, wild.

• 1:30:38Bill Maher?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  And, um.

• 1:30:41Bill Maher?

  Frankly, I'm remembering this now.

• 1:30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know who Wendy O. Williams is. It's like Cor- Corman movie days, you know? And like, that's how I was picturing. I was like, channeling her every day in there. I was like, fuck this place. I hate it. Get me the fuck out of here.

• 1:30:54Bill Maher?

  So there's no truth to the rumor that you institutionalized the other Wendy Williams so that you could beat her in the ratings?

• 1:31:02Speaker 03

  That wasn't really.

• 1:31:05Speaker 03

  I'm so gullible. I was like, wait, what?

• 1:31:07Bill Maher?

  I said it so.

• 1:31:09Speaker 03

  Earnestly.

• 1:31:12Bill Maher?

  The importance of being earnest.

• 1:31:14Speaker 03

  The importance of being earnest.

• 1:31:16Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's a question, because as you can see, I'm a really great talk show host who prepares great questions, no. But like, do you, like, all your, I mean, you've done a million movies, a lot of hits, but they're pretty light, you know, the romantic comedies.

• 1:31:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't want to do dark shit.

• 1:31:38Bill Maher?

  What about now? Like, do you think there's like, like, I feel like you could

• 1:31:44Bill Maher?

  like, do a really heavy role now, and it would blow people's minds.

• 1:31:49Speaker 03

  Okay, you know what else comes without the fear? The feeling of

• 1:31:56Speaker 03

  having to prove something to myself. And if I end up going back there, I'll be so thrilled because I, I do love, like, getting to do films, I really do.

• 1:32:13Speaker 03

  But like, I did this film called Grey Gardens, and what I put myself through to like, prove to myself that I could be a serious actress, or do drama.

• 1:32:24Bill Maher?

  It's a lot.

• 1:32:25Speaker 03

  I, I don't know the next time I'll be running to do that. It'll probably be what like, when my kids are out of the nest and I don't even know. And I don't even know anymore. I don't even know what the fuck I should do. And I, I'm so relieved, and that doesn't scare me, and I feel no fear. I feel like I just want to put one foot in front of the other, and I've never felt this way. So this is what's happened in the last year where I'm like, I feel so

• 1:32:55Speaker 03

  unhingedly liberated from the fear of feeling like I've got to prove something to myself, or that I'll get in trouble. These two things that have really

• 1:33:08Speaker 03

  been by my side or inside of me my whole life. I've never known life without those things. And my first taste and bite of the apple is it's the most delicious thing I've ever known.

• 1:33:20Bill Maher?

  That's teeth crying. It is.

• 1:33:21Speaker 03

  And 49 was where the work happened, and all leading up to that, but.

• 1:33:27Bill Maher?

  Well, again, I don't want to do the work, but I get it. But I definitely don't want to go to it.

• 1:33:32Speaker 03

  What else can we say it? Because you're right, it's so fucking annoying.

• 1:33:35Bill Maher?

  What is?

• 1:33:36Speaker 03

  The work, it is.

• 1:33:37Bill Maher?

  It's not annoying, it's just comedically rich, I feel.

• 1:33:42Speaker 03

  That's a good term. Comedically rich is the nicest way of saying, I think that should be our code word from now on. When someone is just, something or someone is so fucking asinine. And it just is like, come on! May it be comedically rich.

• 1:34:04Bill Maher?

  Well, you did the work on that one. You stuck your foot in that joke.

• 1:34:09Speaker 03

  I think we built up to it, and it just is the payoff of a lifetime. Comedically rich.

• 1:34:15Bill Maher?

  You're talking to somebody who never really understood psychiatry, or like, really put a lot into it. And I know how it's helped a lot of people. But the idea that I could talk to somebody, like, to try to figure me out, and that he would know more about this subject than I do. Only one person lived my life. Like, whatever much I was talking to this guy, he just does not have privy to so much information that is in my head. So, I just feel like it's ridiculous to talk to this guy. Talk to this guy. He knows where all the bodies are buried. He knows the truth.

• 1:34:59Bill Maher?

  He knows the truth of whatever has happened. Because don't tell me people don't lie to their psychiatrists. Or maybe they don't even know they're lying.

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  Did you have a time in your life where, like, you didn't think you were the person who had the answers?

• 1:35:13Bill Maher?

  Of course. Very, I mean, like, up until, you know, I wasn't successful, really, as we would define it in my end of the business. Until late 30s, I finally got my own TV show. But it was on a small network. It did get a lot of press, and yeah. I felt like, okay, this is my, as Bernie Brillstein once said to me, my old manager, I'm sure you know him.

• 1:35:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, Bernie.

• 1:35:38Bill Maher?

  You're walking into stardom at just the right time. Walking into Star, my love, because I was like thirty six or something when I got that show. But like, you know, like many of us started out kind of like real strong. And then there's a period, I mean, did a lot of sitcoms and, you know, you're on your way. And then there's a dip and I, you know, there was a.

• 1:36:01Speaker 03

  It can't stay up all the time. It's gonna come down.

• 1:36:05Bill Maher?

  That's what she said. Good night, everybody.

• 1:36:07Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:36:08Bill Maher?

  Remember the June Taylor dancers will be here next week with Pete Barbooty.

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  And Glenn Miller's tribute band.

• 1:36:17Bill Maher?

  You said you did Carson at seven, that's amazing. I did Carson at twenty six. You know, that's quite a, and I was already twenty years older. So that's like a, a big gap in our experience there.

• 1:36:34Speaker 03

  And yet we probably aligned right up.

• 1:36:38Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I was certainly aware of you. Like when I, before I was even in show business, I think, I mean, E T was nineteen eighty two.

• 1:36:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:36:48Bill Maher?

  Okay, that was my, uh, like second year in comedy, like hanging out at the clubs.

• 1:36:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:55Bill Maher?

  MC.

• 1:36:55Speaker 03

  My mom worked at the Comedy Store.

• 1:36:58Bill Maher?

  Oh, I was in New York, but okay.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  Oh, you were?

• 1:37:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I started, I grew up out there.

• 1:37:02Speaker 03

  Where were you born?

• 1:37:03Bill Maher?

  I was born in New York. Grew up in New Jersey.

• 1:37:07Speaker 03

  Well, shit, you need to come back home.

• 1:37:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, I love New York for a, a fall weekend, a spring weekend. I think winter and summer are shit. I don't like living in a building. I don't get that.

• 1:37:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you're living here, you're not gonna make it in Manhattan. You're gonna die on the vineless vine.

• 1:37:26Bill Maher?

  So you did build the, um, tiki bar up top here? You did.

• 1:37:30Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:37:31Bill Maher?

  That's what I heard.

• 1:37:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:32Bill Maher?

  Of course, it only came through the grapevine, but, so you did. It's gorgeous, it's amazing. It's like a.

• 1:37:38Speaker 03

  I'm so glad it's still standing.

• 1:37:40Bill Maher?

  It's still standing. I've kept it just the way it was with the thatch roof and everything.

• 1:37:45Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:37:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, you gotta clean the rats out of it, but you know, lots of.

• 1:37:48Speaker 03

  How, you had to probably haul out a lot of sand because I had a whole sand mountain like leading up to the tiki bar.

• 1:37:55Bill Maher?

  A sand mountain?

• 1:37:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:57Bill Maher?

  It's a sand mountain.

• 1:37:58Speaker 03

  Well, I just put sand everywhere to, you know, make it go extra tiki.

• 1:38:02Bill Maher?

  Oh, I didn't remember that.

• 1:38:03Speaker 03

  We used to do like quarters, like games, like we turned the tennis court into a beer garden.

• 1:38:09Bill Maher?

  Well, it looks like one of those.

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  Is the screening room still here?

• 1:38:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  With the old projector?

• 1:38:14Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:38:15Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:38:16Bill Maher?

  That was expensive. I didn't want that.

• 1:38:18Speaker 03

  And you, someone has to come in and man it. It's a whole thing. And also, it's not like anyone's working on celluloid anymore.

• 1:38:24Bill Maher?

  No, I mean.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  But.

• 1:38:26Bill Maher?

  Right. I tried to watch something in there. I mean, I.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  I did use to screen a lot of movies in there.

• 1:38:32Bill Maher?

  I'm sure. Um, why wouldn't you?

• 1:38:33Speaker 03

  It felt like a big treat.

• 1:38:34Bill Maher?

  Beautiful screening room.

• 1:38:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was living that Hollywood dream.

• 1:38:38Bill Maher?

  It's just not.

• 1:38:39Speaker 03

  I was. It was so fucking cool.

• 1:38:41Bill Maher?

  I know. I should be. I, I used it like three times in my life.

• 1:38:44Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. I love that screening room.

• 1:38:46Bill Maher?

  But you know what? You can't even get, I wanted to watch this awesome movie. I don't know if you saw it. The, um, The Apprentice, the one where it's about Trump.

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  No, I want to see it.

• 1:38:56Bill Maher?

  It's great.

• 1:38:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:57Bill Maher?

  It's awesome.

• 1:38:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:58Bill Maher?

  Um, and he got nominated.

• 1:39:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:00Bill Maher?

  As he should. Amazing, uh, performance. And, uh, I wanted to watch it in there and I was like, you know, cause the last time I saw something there was a disc.

• 1:39:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:39:12Bill Maher?

  It was like, and then they were making fun of me, you know, Bill, there's no more discs, okay? We don't, so, okay, I accept this. No more discs. I get it. I'm the dinosaur.

• 1:39:22Speaker 03

  You have to have.

• 1:39:22Bill Maher?

  But then they could not get the fucking movie to work.

• 1:39:25Speaker 03

  Because you have to do, um, I need to do anything.

• 1:39:28Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  That's, I, I'm the biggest Luddite. I'm so confused by it all.

• 1:39:35Bill Maher?

  When you splurge, what do you splurge on? Like, I, I'm not a splur, what?

• 1:39:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, that's a great question.

• 1:39:40Bill Maher?

  It is?

• 1:39:41Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 1:39:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, great. Look, I did it once. I stumbled, I stumbled on a great question. I'm telling you.

• 1:39:47Speaker 03

  No, we're also.

• 1:39:48Bill Maher?

  I'm really putting in the work on this one.

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  You know, I, I love a Q and A, sure, but isn't the, I, I always was trying to find the point of having a conversation. Like, I. Don't know if I'm a Q and A person. And my personal experience, also a lot with journalists, was very Q and A. And like, they weren't always listening to what I said because they were thinking about their next question. And they also-

• 1:40:16Bill Maher?

  People do it on the air. You can see them doing it.

• 1:40:20Speaker 03

  Were trying to fit the agenda in. So having had that experience at times, not everybody, but at times.

• 1:40:26Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:40:26Speaker 03

  I was like, I want to do the exact opposite of that feeling. I want to be a pilot who gets someone in the cockpit and we go flying.

• 1:40:34Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:40:34Speaker 03

  He becomes the little prince. We go to different planets. And then we come in for a landing. Like, I've got you. I don't know where we're going. But I will get you home, I promise you.

• 1:40:45Bill Maher?

  That's so great.

• 1:40:46Speaker 03

  And I don't know what the box of tissues are going to be for, the spit take or the tears.

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  So, having the questions, I don't know.

• 1:40:57Bill Maher?

  Well-

• 1:40:57Speaker 03

  But if I was to go and do something really fun, it would definitely travel. Travel is where I like to blow it out.

• 1:41:06Bill Maher?

  My question.

• 1:41:06Speaker 03

  I love travel. I love seeing the world. I love going places with my friends, my kids. I live to travel the world. Like, my first job I ever really wanted was to be a travel writer.

• 1:41:18Bill Maher?

  My splurge was always private jets. Like, and I know there are people, ah, dare you. The pollution, like, okay, well, you know what? When they outlaw planes, then I'll join the crowd. But like, there's a zillion flights a day. I don't think I made the situation that much worse. But, and also, don't be fucking hypocrites. There's two kinds of people in the world. The kind of people who fly privately and the private kind of people who would, if they could, fly privately. I have been both. There is no third category of people who could fly privately and don't, except for Ed Begley and that little Swedish-

• 1:41:57Speaker 03

  Ed Atunberg.

• 1:41:58Bill Maher?

  Yes, and those are the only two. But I don't want to take a sailboat.

• 1:42:04Bill Maher?

  To Europe. I don't. I'm sorry. And I'm sure that makes me a bad person. But yeah, that was, that's my splurge. I don't have a lot of, I'm not a car guy. No expensive art, no jewelry.

• 1:42:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, me neither.

• 1:42:22Bill Maher?

  No divorces, no alimony, no children. You know, like, I don't have a lot of expenses. That was always like, and of course, most of the time I took the plane, I was going to a gig and I was still making money. I was just making less. But there was also, once you get used to it, even when you're not doing a gig, you're like, okay.

• 1:42:43Speaker 03

  It's amazing. It sets the whole world up for like something different. But I think also, you probably make a deal with yourself of like how you want to get back and forth from work and what is worth it to you.

• 1:42:58Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:42:58Speaker 03

  And this is the first time in my life where I, it's like, that is the fear I'm talking about. Like the fear of even having the conversation is gone. And I was the person who was like, you know, because I travel in every different way. I take the fucking RV with my laundry basket and I've flown a private jet and I take commercial and I.

• 1:43:21Bill Maher?

  RV?

• 1:43:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love RVs.

• 1:43:23Bill Maher?

  You have one?

• 1:43:24Speaker 03

  I don't own one. I get them from cruiseamerica.com.

• 1:43:27Bill Maher?

  Like a Sprinter?

• 1:43:28Speaker 03

  Like a Tioga Class C. You have a regular driver's license. There's two beds.

• 1:43:33Bill Maher?

  Where do you take this?

• 1:43:35Speaker 03

  Last one I took was New York to Florida. My friend had broken her.

• 1:43:39Bill Maher?

  You drove from New York to Florida in RV with your kids?

• 1:43:41Speaker 03

  No, just my girlfriend or my friend.

• 1:43:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, girlfriend.

• 1:43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:46Bill Maher?

  Were there adventures?

• 1:43:47Speaker 03

  Totally. It was so fun.

• 1:43:49Bill Maher?

  Really? Like what?

• 1:43:50Speaker 03

  Not like, not, nothing like party. Those were more like in the old and RV days.

• 1:43:54Bill Maher?

  You're at the Motel 6?

• 1:43:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:43:56Bill Maher?

  Okay, you're trying to.

• 1:43:58Speaker 03

  I put someone up.

• 1:43:59Bill Maher?

  You're trying to convince the manager to keep the pool open past midnight. It's a stupid rule.

• 1:44:04Speaker 03

  Well, that, yeah, I'm sure I'm doing that.

• 1:44:06Bill Maher?

  And maybe Mr. Jackson could convince you to keep the pool open. Wait, I'm channeling my comic days when I was doing exactly that. But it is fun to be in a motel when you're on the road. It can be.

• 1:44:19Speaker 03

  Did you have fun in the motel on the road?

• 1:44:21Bill Maher?

  I feel like it just loosens people up. The atmosphere, there's two places, the Playboy Mansion and the Motel 6.

• 1:44:28Speaker 03

  I used to go to the Playboy Mansion all the time.

• 1:44:30Bill Maher?

  Of course, you were 12.

• 1:44:31Speaker 03

  Um, no, I wasn't when I went there. I was older.

• 1:44:35Bill Maher?

  13.

• 1:44:37Bill Maher?

  When did you go to the play? Because I didn't see you there when I was there.

• 1:44:40Speaker 03

  Um, like in my twenties.

• 1:44:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you're probably over it when I was just into it.

• 1:44:47Speaker 03

  No, I was like hanging out on like the lawn with Cameron Diaz. And we were just walking around, hanging out, and I never like picked people up. I'd never got into that shit, but I loved being there and having a, going to a party there.

• 1:45:00Bill Maher?

  It was a fun.

• 1:45:01Speaker 03

  It was fun.

• 1:45:02Bill Maher?

  Iconic.

• 1:45:03Speaker 03

  Ever since.

• 1:45:04Bill Maher?

  Campy. I mean, you couldn't take, if you, as long as you didn't take it too seriously.

• 1:45:08Speaker 03

  No, I, I trust that where I am is, is bliss.

• 1:45:12Bill Maher?

  So much better.

• 1:45:13Speaker 03

  I don't really go out a lot and I want to be the kind of person who throws like a bunch of dinner parties, but I still haven't like. I, I used to be that person. I used to be like Mrs. Game Night, big game nighter, like any, and.

• 1:45:27Bill Maher?

  You know what? I put in a dining room table, uh, because I used to have dinners with Sue Mengers.

• 1:45:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Bill Maher?

  She had these awesome dinner parties.

• 1:45:35Speaker 03

  Right, people who throw them. I admire them so much.

• 1:45:37Bill Maher?

  Table and she could command because of who she was, whoever she wanted and they would come.

• 1:45:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:45:43Bill Maher?

  So I put in a round table, like just like hers, because a round table, everyone can see each other, talk to each other.

• 1:45:49Speaker 03

  Can't be too wide. See, I am an industrial designer and I actually make furniture and I have a very big passion. This is what occupies my fucking brain about the circular circumference of a round table. Because you can quickly alienate everyone around you with too much circle.

• 1:46:05Bill Maher?

  Well, this is for like eight or nine or 10, eight, at most 10, but I think eight people.

• 1:46:11Speaker 03

  Can the people across from each other talk?

• 1:46:14Bill Maher?

  Of course, that's the, that's the genius of a round table. Is it no one, no one is.

• 1:46:18Speaker 03

  Make it too big. And then literally, it's like the rights.

• 1:46:22Bill Maher?

  I don't think eight is too big. I think.

• 1:46:24Speaker 03

  Eight is, eight is good.

• 1:46:26Bill Maher?

  Eight is good.

• 1:46:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. I really, I do want to measure your table.

• 1:46:29Bill Maher?

  Well, we should have a, when you're out here, we should have, you should, we should, you have to invite the people. Cause you have the cachet to do that. I do not.

• 1:46:37Speaker 03

  I don't know if I do.

• 1:46:38Bill Maher?

  Oh, you totally do.

• 1:46:40Speaker 03

  I don't see myself that way.

• 1:46:41Bill Maher?

  Well, if you and I throw a dinner party, I promise you a lot of great people will come.

• 1:46:46Speaker 03

  You know what? That would be really fun. And I'm in an era where I really want to do that. Like I used to be so good at being like, come on, everybody, let's go. But it was in the nineties more and like in the eighties where it was kind of door open. And actually, that's a lie.

• 1:47:00Bill Maher?

  You're Hollywood royalty. I'm like, wow, that guy.

• 1:47:06Bill Maher?

  He's smart. I don't know if I want to even be in the room with him.

• 1:47:09Speaker 03

  You know what's so funny?

• 1:47:10Bill Maher?

  He's gonna be, maybe he's gonna be mean.

• 1:47:11Speaker 03

  You come out on your show and there is like, you are an oak. You cannot fuck with you. And then it turns out like you're, you're

• 1:47:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:22Speaker 03

  much more human in that way of like, and I have known you over the years, but I would not have known the things about you that I've ascertained from this conversation, just like you to me. And I don't think those people ever that we're being out there are not us. I know they are us, but it is not the full picture. You can't have that.

• 1:47:43Bill Maher?

  It's one reason I wanted to do this.

• 1:47:45Speaker 03

  I know, me too.

• 1:47:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I mean, like a podcast, you know, and with you, but like this is like something that is

• 1:47:54Bill Maher?

  different.

• 1:47:55Speaker 03

  It is different.

• 1:47:56Bill Maher?

  And yet I am the same guy. It always amuses me that people feel like there's this big demarcation and I certainly get the difference between real time and this. It is a lot, but I feel like my fans, they don't see that big a difference. They're like, I guess like, you know, he's this and that and he's like, I've heard, I've had reviews on likable. I'm like, really? I've been on TV for 32 years.

• 1:48:22Bill Maher?

  Can you really do that and be unlikable? I mean, I get it, you don't like me. But like, it feels like you have to have something more than just the information you're giving them. Well, people have to kinda, and I feel like my real fans, they're like, they don't see that big a difference. They see me on Real Time and know I've got a suit and a tie on and we're talking to a senator. But it's like, it's really the same guy. Because I just, as we were saying, I just don't know how to or have any interest in being other than who I am. Not in a relationship, so don't try to change me. Not on a TV show, not here. Just let me be who I am, good and bad. I, I know this, in ways, I'm a preposterous character. But I own it.

• 1:49:05Speaker 03

  I think I am too. I know, I, I, I, I.

• 1:49:11Bill Maher?

  Barely, you're so sane. I keep saying it, but really, you're so level-headed. Like, one of the most level-headed people.

• 1:49:19Speaker 03

  I, I, coming from you, I fucking love that. I'm really thrilled to hear that.

• 1:49:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, we're just, we're just, you know, people who are trying to make it with what we're given. You know, that's kind of the secret, I feel, is like, you figure out what you're good at, what you were organically given that makes you special. And then develop that. Because if you try to develop something that you're not organically great at, you'll fail. Like, I would love to have been a musician.

• 1:49:59Speaker 03

  I never attempted it, because I'm terrible.

• 1:50:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, of course, me too. And, and so, like, don't like, try to turn a, you know, silk trousers into a silk purse. It's not gonna happen. But, you know, that's the kind of thing, if I had kids, that's the kind of thing I would be telling them. Like, figure out what you're good at. Don't, don't be the 23-year-old who's out of college and you don't know what you're good at. You're like, I, I hear that so much, you know.

• 1:50:26Speaker 03

  When did you know you were good at comedy?

• 1:50:29Bill Maher?

  Like, seven, like, very young. Like, I wanted to be a comedian before I was 10.

• 1:50:37Bill Maher?

  That's who I liked on TV, you know?

• 1:50:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:50:39Bill Maher?

  And that's who, my father was funny, my mother was witty. It was just in our house, I saw, I'm sure I saw my father looking popular among his friends if he got a laugh.

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:53Bill Maher?

  I think that's what puts the chip in your brain. And then, I mean, you have to be born or somehow get timing when you're young.

• 1:51:02Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 1:51:03Bill Maher?

  Comedy is all timing.

• 1:51:04Speaker 03

  Wit.

• 1:51:04Bill Maher?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:51:07Speaker 03

  Wit is everything. It just is. It's like a cylinder. That's my favorite.

• 1:51:12Bill Maher?

  Not to everybody. A lot of people don't give a shit about wit.

• 1:51:15Speaker 03

  I think it's synonymous with being funny.

• 1:51:18Bill Maher?

  Smart people need wit in their life.

• 1:51:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:21Bill Maher?

  I mean, other people do not.

• 1:51:23Speaker 03

  Do your friends make you laugh?

• 1:51:25Bill Maher?

  Well, they wouldn't be my friends if they didn't.

• 1:51:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, me too. My friends are so fucking funny, it hurts my soul. I find myself in that laughter that I just, is my favorite feeling other than the love of my kids. It's like those moments with my friends when I feel so safe. I know I'm with people I totally trust and we are laughing our balls off.

• 1:51:49Bill Maher?

  I remember I had this very.

• 1:51:51Speaker 03

  Same people I can talk to the heaviest shit about, you know?

• 1:51:55Bill Maher?

  I had this very, the longest relationship I really ever had, like in my, in.

• 1:52:00Speaker 03

  Mine too.

• 1:52:01Bill Maher?

  Like the late eighties, early nineties when I was in my mid thirties.

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  Oh, with a woman?

• 1:52:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like a, like a, you know, real serious thing, like I, I, if I was gonna get married, that's.

• 1:52:12Speaker 03

  Was it about her or where you thought you should be in life?

• 1:52:16Bill Maher?

  Oh, it was totally her. She was.

• 1:52:18Speaker 03

  Where is she now?

• 1:52:20Bill Maher?

  She's with some, she's Colorado, I think, maybe Arizona. I mean, there's been those two states involved. She's with somebody, she's very happy. We're still the best of friends. But, you know, I was, you know, not. Certainly ready to settle down, even though she was perfect.

• 1:52:39Speaker 03

  What is it?

• 1:52:40Bill Maher?

  And one reason she was perfect, if I can get to this point, is like,

• 1:52:43Speaker 03

  That's what I wanted to hear.

• 1:52:44Bill Maher?

  She said to me, unlike other girls, I remember I just had gotten out of a relationship with a girl had the opposite point of view, and who would made me like go out with her friends who were boring. And this girl said to me at one point, no, let's just go out with your friends. They're comedians. They're so much funnier and better to hang around than my friends. Are you kidding? And, you know, because I think we had just had dinner with Richard Lewis. It's like, yeah, wouldn't you rather have dinner with Richard Lewis than a fucking insurance salesman? And I was like, this girl is a keeper. Because she's not wrong, and we're gonna have a better time. And we're gonna hang out with my comedian friends.

• 1:53:22Speaker 03

  My dream person professionally was Adam Sandler back in the day.

• 1:53:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:27Speaker 03

  I was like, this guy has it all.

• 1:53:31Bill Maher?

  That's been a very special relationship, like, I feel like the public feels that way too.

• 1:53:36Speaker 03

  I, I love him so much, and I love his wife so much and his family. And we were single people who didn't have kids, who were really young when we first started, like, working together.

• 1:53:51Bill Maher?

  So why didn't you end up with him?

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  I, we just always had a really platonic relationship. It just never was that.

• 1:53:58Bill Maher?

  Didn't have that gene.

• 1:53:59Speaker 03

  It just.

• 1:54:00Bill Maher?

  That thing, that pull.

• 1:54:01Speaker 03

  And I'm so glad, by the way, like, who knows what would have fucking happened?

• 1:54:05Bill Maher?

  You just fucked everything up.

• 1:54:06Speaker 03

  Probably. The second people do that, it's all fucking sensitive city. You know, why, why, why can I have forty years with my friends that takes so much work? It really does. Friendships take work. If you're not working at the friendships, that's interesting. I would pay attention to that. Friendships take a lot of work. You grow, you change, you have to keep it up, you have to be open to what they're being honest with you about. You have to tell them your truths. It's a lot of work.

• 1:54:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:36Speaker 03

  But they stay, and I don't.

• 1:54:38Bill Maher?

  And the other thing is primal. You either wanna fuck somebody or you don't. It's just, you just.

• 1:54:43Speaker 03

  But what about the slow burn? What about, like, someone being so dynamic and brilliant that before you know it, you're like, oh, I wouldn't have thought so initially, but shit.

• 1:54:53Bill Maher?

  That happens with.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  You're amazing.

• 1:54:55Bill Maher?

  There's a type of people that happens to, they're called women.

• 1:55:00Speaker 03

  But that's why I can't date on dating apps. Because it's like from a picture and your first fucking name and your duplicitous title. I know you're not a fucking astronaut.

• 1:55:09Bill Maher?

  First of all, please, don't ever go on a dating. Why would you go on a dating site?

• 1:55:13Speaker 03

  I tried it.

• 1:55:16Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I read about that.

• 1:55:17Speaker 03

  It's fun to talk about. It's fun to be in the world and attempt things and relate to people and be in a current climate of how people behave. It's not for me.

• 1:55:28Bill Maher?

  May I quote Lou Grant in a Mary Tyler Moore episode?

• 1:55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:33Bill Maher?

  The treasure doesn't do the hunting.

• 1:55:36Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:55:39Speaker 03

  So that's what candle in the wind means. Just kidding.

• 1:55:46Bill Maher?

  Really, you're too good for that. You shouldn't not. First of all, it's a bullshit thing. It's a bullshit thing. And also, you're just like, you're not of, I mean, you're, for better or worse, you're a giant celebrity.

• 1:56:02Speaker 03

  But I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy.

• 1:56:05Bill Maher?

  I just watched that one again, too.

• 1:56:07Speaker 03

  It's the best.

• 1:56:07Bill Maher?

  It's the best.

• 1:56:08Speaker 03

  It's the best.

• 1:56:09Bill Maher?

  Notting Hill.

• 1:56:10Speaker 03

  Richard Curtis.

• 1:56:11Bill Maher?

  Genius.

• 1:56:12Speaker 03

  Who made Love Actually.

• 1:56:13Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:56:14Speaker 03

  Have you seen the movie About Time?

• 1:56:16Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:56:16Speaker 03

  With Rachel McAdams?

• 1:56:18Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:56:18Speaker 03

  And Donald Gleason?

• 1:56:20Bill Maher?

  No, but it's About Time I did.

• 1:56:22Speaker 03

  That and Defending Your Life.

• 1:56:25Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know, of course.

• 1:56:26Speaker 03

  That's a masterpiece.

• 1:56:27Bill Maher?

  Brooks, I agree.

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  Like, those, About Time is so beautiful. Richard Curtis.

• 1:56:34Bill Maher?

  I'll have to catch up with that one.

• 1:56:36Speaker 03

  He puts such meaningful things into the world. He has so much heart and so much brilliance, and his movies are so fucking life-affirming.

• 1:56:45Bill Maher?

  But Notting Hill, it's just, it's like, it's, you know, you watch it.

• 1:56:54Bill Maher?

  Um, you know, maybe with someone who hasn't seen it. And it's just like, it's a transformative experience because it's just like what a rom com is supposed to be. It's actually funny, you know, it has funny lines in it. And it has what all rom coms need, a reason why the two people involved can't get together. I mean, you know, if it's Benjamin Button, it's because we're aging in reverse. How can we get together? There has to be a, a problem.

• 1:57:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:25Bill Maher?

  The giant ship is sinking.

• 1:57:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:27Bill Maher?

  Okay, this is a problem in a relationship.

• 1:57:30Speaker 03

  In our case of Fifty First Dates, she can't remember him.

• 1:57:33Bill Maher?

  That's right, exactly. And, you know, this is a, she's, she's a goddess, you know, and but then when she reminds us that she's just a girl, standing in front of a boy.

• 1:57:44Speaker 03

  It's also Hugh Grant, you know?

• 1:57:46Bill Maher?

  And Julia Roberts.

• 1:57:47Speaker 03

  That helps.

• 1:57:47Bill Maher?

  They're both magnificent.

• 1:57:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:49Bill Maher?

  And it's just, uh, and also the little cast of characters and weirdos around him. There's a little

• 1:57:55Speaker 03

  The best.

• 1:57:56Bill Maher?

  You know, there's a little bit of that, uh, thing we love in movies where the, the character we relate to is

• 1:58:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:58:03Bill Maher?

  the central sane figure in the middle and around him or her are a bunch of crazy people.

• 1:58:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I relate more to Spike than Julia Roberts.

• 1:58:12Bill Maher?

  No, you don't. No, you don't. You really don't.

• 1:58:16Speaker 03

  I, I

• 1:58:16Bill Maher?

  Spike, you are not Spike. You're Julia Roberts. You know, you're a movie star. You're a movie star.

• 1:58:25Speaker 03

  I've never known it.

• 1:58:27Bill Maher?

  I'm just a boy. Sitting on a bench with a girl, telling you you're a movie

• 1:58:31Speaker 03

  Sitting on a swing.

• 1:58:32Bill Maher?

  Telling you you're a movie star.

• 1:58:34Speaker 03

  In my old house.

• 1:58:35Bill Maher?

  And you just, movie stars just don't go on dating sites, okay? Can we just make that rule? Movie stars don't go on

• 1:58:42Speaker 03

  Deal.

• 1:58:42Bill Maher?

  dating sites.

• 1:58:44Speaker 03

  Deal.

• 1:58:44Bill Maher?

  You know, I don't really think I have to explain it more than that.

• 1:58:47Speaker 03

  It was fun to attempt until I realized what everyone's dealing with and now I just

• 1:58:52Bill Maher?

  Well, first of all, how could you even trust anything that's on it? You can't, certainly can't trust the pictures.

• 1:58:58Speaker 03

  Well, that's

• 1:58:58Bill Maher?

  I learned, I learned that from MySpace.

• 1:59:02Speaker 03

  My space. I swear to God, that is why I emphasized the word trust earlier. I think that has, that is the North Star. Trust.

• 1:59:12Bill Maher?

  Well, that's

• 1:59:12Speaker 03

  Very hard, but it can be earned and it's a beautiful thing when it is.

• 1:59:18Bill Maher?

  I've explained this to a million young girls younger than me, who don't understand because they're young. Trust is just not something that happens without ears, which you do not have. That doesn't mean I don't like you, but trust has to come in time. There is no shortcut to it. Like, somebody I know 20 years, I trust. If they do something sketchy, I will give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe because I've known them for a long time. I have history, exactly, history. And so, it seems an aberration. If you do something sketchy, I don't know you. It's very different. So, that's all I know about you.

• 2:00:00Bill Maher?

  Not you.

• 2:00:03Speaker 03

  It's so, it's so true. No, I feel

• 2:00:07Bill Maher?

  Not you. You I do trust already.

• 2:00:10Speaker 03

  I'm so glad.

• 2:00:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 2:00:12Speaker 03

  Because you are a very, a word I learned, which I loved along, you know, discerning. You're a very discerning man. When it comes to a lot of things, you are.

• 2:00:26Bill Maher?

  It's a charitable word for it, but I appreciate it. Yes, I think I am, I mean.

• 2:00:30Speaker 03

  I've watched you for decades, go out there and speak your truth.

• 2:00:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:38Speaker 03

  I don't think there is anything that exists of the truth. It's your truth and

• 2:00:46Bill Maher?

  There is also in life the truth. We may not always be able to discern it, but is, there is the truth.

• 2:00:52Speaker 03

  Well, that's the biggest risk right now.

• 2:00:54Bill Maher?

  But it's very hard to be the one on either side to ever proclaim you know what it is. That is a dangerous thing to do.

• 2:01:01Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 2:01:01Bill Maher?

  We always need to hear, because we don't know. We're not God.

• 2:01:05Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:01:06Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 2:01:07Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:01:07Bill Maher?

  But there is, but it does exist, the truth. Not everything is just your truth. I mean, your truth has become sort of like code word for just whatever I feel like, whatever I feel like believing. Well, that's not really the same thing as your truth. You feel this way.

• 2:01:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:27Bill Maher?

  Feeling is not enough for me.

• 2:01:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:30Bill Maher?

  Again, that's such a male patriarchal point of view, facts.

• 2:01:35Speaker 03

  No, but that, it just, it is such a taboo subject, the truth.

• 2:01:40Bill Maher?

  It is. Oh, and I get you hated.

• 2:01:42Speaker 03

  Oh, as soon as I said it, I was like, the truth, that there is no truth. I'm like, that doesn't work. You can't say things like that. But I was putting on you that you speak your truth. And you have a lot of bravado about what you think is the truth or not. But it's just so refreshing. Like, you were doing this before it was so dangerous.

• 2:02:11Bill Maher?

  Still dangerous.

• 2:02:12Speaker 03

  And it is just way too dangerous now.

• 2:02:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:16Speaker 03

  But you're still doing it.

• 2:02:17Bill Maher?

  It's slightly less dangerous than it was two years ago because we did have a vibe change. And because the Democrats lost so badly in 2024, the blush is off the rose on left-wing censorship and, oh, my God, you can't say that. Stop telling me what I can do, what I can say, what I can think, who my heroes are supposed to be. Just, you know, just get, get, get the fuck off of me. Get back up off of me. That is a lot of just what viscerally is going on with me when I have issues with the left. Just get the fuck off of me. First of all, I don't believe you. You're not better. You're just, you're a lot of posers.

• 2:03:02Bill Maher?

  Not all of you, but just get the fuck off of me.

• 2:03:05Speaker 03

  Well, that's what I like is it's your, you know, you call people out from all different areas. And I don't even know how to address parties anymore. Everything is so different now.

• 2:03:16Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:16Speaker 03

  But I, you know, if you are ballsy enough to do those things, what is it that like scares you or that you care about?

• 2:03:30Bill Maher?

  You're asking me?

• 2:03:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:33Bill Maher?

  Cut.

• 2:03:37Bill Maher?

  I was so riveted by the framing there. I was like, wow, who are we talking to? What was the question? What am I?

• 2:03:46Speaker 03

  If you're ballsy enough to be brave enough to say your truths or speak for what you believe is the truth.

• 2:03:53Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 2:03:53Speaker 03

  What scares you and what do you care about?

• 2:03:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, what scares me is a little bit me. That, you know, at any moment, you can like say something that really in private conversation wouldn't upset anybody.

• 2:04:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:04:12Bill Maher?

  But the snitches and bitches will be able to use it to

• 2:04:16Speaker 03

  End you.

• 2:04:17Bill Maher?

  End you, which they did once on Politically Incorrect.

• 2:04:20Speaker 03

  I've been ended a few times. And I understand that it is real and it can happen.

• 2:04:25Bill Maher?

  So like I always say, whenever I leave the house, not even to just do the show, just leave the house. I'm having dinner at a restaurant, but one of those rooftop restaurants. Because is it really dangerous? Not very, but you could fall off the roof.

• 2:04:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:04:44Bill Maher?

  When you eat at a normal restaurant, there's no danger of you falling off the roof. When you eat at a rooftop restaurant, there's very little, but it is possible you could fall off the roof. When I go out, it's probably, I'm just going out to dinner.

• 2:05:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:05:01Bill Maher?

  It's unlikely anything is going to happen that would end my career, but it is possible.

• 2:05:06Speaker 03

  Okay, so that

• 2:05:06Bill Maher?

  It is possible.

• 2:05:07Speaker 03

  That's a part of like the in trouble thing?

• 2:05:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, yes, yes, exactly, exactly.

• 2:05:18Bill Maher?

  Whenever, it's so funny, pull into the driveway. I always say to my girl, like, did anything bad happen tonight?

• 2:05:26Bill Maher?

  And she's like, what the fuck you, nothing bad hap- are you sure? Yes, we went out to dinner. Nothing bad happened.

• 2:05:35Speaker 03

  I have walked around with that feeling my whole life.

• 2:05:38Bill Maher?

  But I'm always, and now it's like a running joke because, you know, nothing bad happened? Like, that sort of paranoia. No, is it as bad as things other people go through? No, but living with that paranoia is not nothing. I don't feel guilty about saying that that's a complaint I have about life. Everybody has their complaints. That's one of mine. Is it as bad as starving? No, but it's not nothing. It kind of sucks that you can't pull into the driveway without a peaceable night at dinner, without thinking, anything bad happened? Is somebody gonna like, you know?

• 2:06:15Speaker 03

  Did I say something? Did I do something?

• 2:06:16Bill Maher?

  Right, right. Especially if you're with a lot of prominent people, you know? And I'm like a funny, funny guy and it's got gets loaded and I like.

• 2:06:27Speaker 03

  Says?

• 2:06:28Bill Maher?

  That's, yes.

• 2:06:29Speaker 03

  Stuff?

• 2:06:29Bill Maher?

  It's like, I thought it was funny.

• 2:06:31Speaker 03

  I have so many friends who are like, if they looked at my texts, I'd be ruined. Like, because you just riff and talk and you're not like, you know, possibly liable at that moment.

• 2:06:40Bill Maher?

  I wouldn't do it in a tuck.

• 2:06:42Speaker 03

  No, I'm just saying, people, other people have that.

• 2:06:45Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 2:06:45Speaker 03

  On this property, right outside this window, my dad stayed on the property with me. And it was like the only time I ever lived with him.

• 2:06:55Bill Maher?

  And you made him stay outside the window?

• 2:06:57Speaker 03

  Um, well, in this pathway here, no, he stayed in the house next door.

• 2:07:03Bill Maher?

  Ah, the treehouse.

• 2:07:05Speaker 03

  The treehouse. He said to me, he was like, um, I said something about paranoia to him because he was extremely paranoid. Um, but he said, it's not paranoia, it's baranoia.

• 2:07:20Speaker 03

  And that happened at this house.

• 2:07:22Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 2:07:22Speaker 03

  And I was like, thank you. You finally put a word to how I feel in the world. I have fucking paranoia, which is like a hybrid of our name, obviously, and paranoia. And maybe everybody feels that way. Maybe everyone's pulling into the driveway at night going, did I fucking do or say something?

• 2:07:41Bill Maher?

  No, they're not. No, they're not. We are. Plumbers aren't. And I get it. I'd rather be.

• 2:07:48Speaker 03

  Maybe they are.

• 2:07:49Bill Maher?

  No, they're not. I'd rather be me than a plumber. But let's not kid ourselves. Plumbers don't worry about that. They don't pull in the driveway and go, did anything bad happen? They pull in the driveway and go, oh shit, tomorrow the rent is due. And that's worse. But this is my shit. Like, we all just gotta live with our own shit. And that's, you know, as long as you're just not home alone, you're having dinner on the roof. You're probably not gonna fall off of it, but it's always kind of on your mind. Like, I don't ever have dinner anymore at restaurants on the roof. Because what if there's an earthquake? Unlikely, but if there is, I'm gonna be trampled by a lot of fucking millennials and Gen Z'ers going for the elevator.

• 2:08:34Bill Maher?

  And they're not gonna be, like, you know, some of them will be, oh, good. What a great opportunity to kill Bill Maher. Like, the earthquake is secondary to that. But, you know, it's just, it is what it is.

• 2:08:48Speaker 03

  I think everybody pulls into the driveway and is worried for their well-being. They're worried about something happening.

• 2:08:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's just different. It's just what they're worried about is.

• 2:08:59Speaker 03

  But the feeling is the same. And that's what I learned with those girls in the institution. I was like, we're all in the same boat. We all feel the same way. It is, it is a feeling of fear of loss.

• 2:09:12Bill Maher?

  All right, well, I know the show is over because I have to pee.

• 2:09:17Speaker 03

  I have to pee so bad. It just hit me, too.

• 2:09:19Bill Maher?

  Oh, great. Look, we're in sync.

• 2:09:23Speaker 03

  We have matched up our cycles. That's what us girls do, Bill. We sync up.

• 2:09:30Bill Maher?

  Well, I can't tell you how much this meant to me that you would come by here and do this. I'm gonna be on Hollywood Squares, right?

• 2:09:38Speaker 03

  No, thank you for coming and doing that.

• 2:09:40Bill Maher?

  Absolutely, I gave it my best shot.

• 2:09:43Speaker 03

  And I really hope that you'll come do the show, but most-

• 2:09:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, that I'd be good at.

• 2:09:48Speaker 03

  Most importantly, I wanna throw that dinner party with you.

• 2:09:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes. Because like, people won't come if I invite them. But you-

• 2:09:58Speaker 03

  I totally disagree.

• 2:10:00Bill Maher?

  I-

• 2:10:00Speaker 03

  I would show up for a dinner invitation from you.

• 2:10:03Bill Maher?

  You're different. You're a little different. You're a different kinda cat. You're very real. A lot of, a lot of people in this town are, um, like, it's very about who else is coming.

• 2:10:14Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, do you wanna know something about me?

• 2:10:18Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 2:10:19Speaker 03

  I literally avoided all the dinner parties because they made me feel like that. There was, like, so much about who was there. And I have never been that person. And what I love about your show, and, and this is part of what I thought was our connection, that we can't help being ourselves, but that I find with you, and I know this is my truth, that I don't know where the next great conversation is coming from. I don't know where the life-changing moment, or the funny little fact, or the wisdom, or the idea of something, or the laugh, or the tear, is coming from. And the way I see you talking to people all these years is so not always about the name,

• 2:11:04Speaker 03

  or the person, or the this, or the get, or the that. It's talking to people.

• 2:11:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah, very interesting to hear.

• 2:11:11Speaker 03

  I am a people person.

• 2:11:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know.

• 2:11:13Speaker 03

  So, I know we'll make that dinner party really fun, and it's not going to be the gets. It's like, who would we find so fun, and who would actually come? And I know it would be fucking awesome.

• 2:11:26Bill Maher?

  No, I wanna get Spielberg.

• 2:11:27Speaker 03

  All right, we'll call him.

• 2:11:30Speaker 03

  I have him on speed dial.

• 2:11:31Bill Maher?

  Because, again, you could get him and I can't, that's what I'm saying.

• 2:11:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can get him on speed dial, but would he come? I don't know.

• 2:11:39Bill Maher?

  If it was you, he would.

• 2:11:40Speaker 03

  If, if I said it was-

• 2:11:41Bill Maher?

  But also, but also, he'd wanna know else, who else was there. And, but it would be like, that's the thing, like, the, the, the, you know, the highfalutin types, the fancy people, they, they wanna feel- Like they're among people of their worthy.

• 2:11:57Speaker 03

  I don't get that vibe from you.

• 2:11:59Bill Maher?

  Not me.

• 2:12:00Speaker 03

  Not me.

• 2:12:01Bill Maher?

  Definitely not me.

• 2:12:01Speaker 03

  No, me neither. I've never felt that way in my life.

• 2:12:04Bill Maher?

  No.

• 2:12:05Speaker 03

  Like, the idea of that, like, people have to be, like, successful and fabulous. I mean, it's true. I've never even, like, dated that way. I just, that is not.

• 2:12:15Bill Maher?

  Plainly.

• 2:12:17Speaker 03

  No. I, I just, it's, it's not where my head's at. My head is like, who is that fucking person? Are they, do they have a brilliance that I would be so lucky to be around and really, like, enjoy that? And then who they are in the world is totally random after that. Random.

• 2:12:37Bill Maher?

  Right. Couldn't agree more. Having said that, Benson Boone asked me for your number.

• 2:12:42Speaker 03

  He's so too young and he so does not want my phone number and.

• 2:12:47Bill Maher?

  I'm just saying.

• 2:12:50Speaker 03

  But by the way, he's so loved, he's such a dynamic figure out in the world. I'm very excited for him and his life.

• 2:12:56Bill Maher?

  I agree.

• 2:12:57Speaker 03

  All of that he's putting out in the world.

• 2:13:01Speaker 03

  Maybe he would come to the dinner party.

• 2:13:02Bill Maher?

  Exact, he would if you asked him. I'm telling you, you're the new Sue Mengers. I'm telling you, you have.

• 2:13:08Speaker 03

  Compared to Sue Mengers, hot. H A W T. Hot.

• 2:13:13Bill Maher?

  I'm glad we put a human face on this. I guarantee you Benson Boone would not come to a dinner party if I invited him, but would definitely come if you invited him.

• 2:13:24Speaker 03

  I don't know. Maybe.

• 2:13:25Bill Maher?

  That is the, the litmus test.

• 2:13:28Speaker 03

  I don't, I.

• 2:13:29Bill Maher?

  Absolutely. You want to put a billion trillion pesos on this? Yes, Benson Boone.

• 2:13:36Speaker 03

  Let's just see what happens.

• 2:13:37Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 2:13:38Speaker 03

  And either we're both gonna be the loser who Benson Boone doesn't want to fucking have dinner with.

• 2:13:43Bill Maher?

  It's only, it's only eight people. Me, you, Spielberg and his wife.

• 2:13:47Speaker 03

  And I hope to not line up a round table because I'd like to talk, that's the fucking thing with big round tables. You've alienated everyone and only have the two people next to you.

• 2:13:57Bill Maher?

  This table is the opposite of alienating.

• 2:13:58Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm gonna measure it.

• 2:14:00Bill Maher?

  It's all, you could do it right now. It's right next door.

• 2:14:03Speaker 03

  I.

• 2:14:03Bill Maher?

  Okay, but I'm telling you, Spielberg, Benson Boone.

• 2:14:07Speaker 03

  Bigger than 60 inches, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be coming here with a chainsaw and like taking off the rim.

• 2:14:13Bill Maher?

  That's what she said.

• 2:14:16Bill Maher?

  Oh my God. I'm sorry to keep you not peeing. This was the best. I agree. Oh, the best. It's a shame that we can't do this on real TV. But, you know, years ago, you did pee, I mean, real time, and I did not treat you the right way. I know I didn't. You remember that? I do, and I'm sorry about it. I was, I should have been. Thank you for saying that. Because you did the documentary, and you were so nice. I just should have been cooler. Oh, my God, that's so funny. It was early on, and I was like nervous and getting my feet on. I didn't know what the show was. Okay, interesting. Oh, thank you for saying that. No, no, it always bothered me.

• 2:15:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God, I love that. No, no, I'm better now. By the way, you're so funny. You know, I got more mature. I never ever held it against you. I know, because you're so sweet like that. I'm a good person. I appreciate you really are. You really are, and so sane, so sane. Oh. You know. God. Really. People don't realize that's the hottest compliment out there. And I had so many nuts here, and they're not. I don't doubt it, by the way. And some of them are like very highfalutin nuts, but they are, but. There are some high-functioning nuts out there. Nuts they are. Totally. It's like in Notting Hill, you know, that scene where, the same scene what you quoted before, and he's saying to her, "Well, I haven't seen you in a while, and I see you won an Oscar, and you're doing so well," and she's like, it's all nonsense.

• 2:15:44Bill Maher?

  I know it seems great, and you read about in the papers, but nonsense it is. It's just so great, that moment. It is nonsense. It is nonsense. It's not.

• 2:16:00Bill Maher?

  Okay. I'm excited to see who's gonna come to this dinner party. Benson Boone and Steven Spielberg. Because, you know, like Spielberg's gonna say, "Who else is gonna be there?" And you're gonna say Benson Boone. He's gonna, "Oh, this must be the greatest party." And Benson Boone. So guess what? Benson Boone has all the powers in this scenario. We have none, and it's all Benson Boone.

• 2:16:24Bill Maher?

  He's gonna say, "Who's coming?" And you're gonna say, "Steven Spielberg," and he's gonna say, "I'm there." Well, yeah, because then that's Steven Spielberg, it's not us. Exactly. So we have no clout or pull, is basically what we're. Because you can lie to them both.

• 2:16:42Speaker 00

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no ven de lejos, y los que no ven de cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 2:17:12Speaker 02

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• 2:17:54Speaker 02

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