Kathy Griffin | Club Random Classics with Bill Maher

On this month's Club Random Classics, Bill Maher revisits one of his most electric sit-downs with comedian Kathy Griffin. The two dig into why Kathy turns everything into a fight, her explosive war with MAGA nation, and what actually happens when the internet decides to cancel you. Kathy breaks down the real story behind that infamous Trump photo, the fallout it caused, and the long list of people who sued her over it. She and Bill also geek out on Joe Rogan's brilliance, revisit the upsetting Kennedy scene from the Marilyn Monroe biopic, and Bill pitches Kathy an entire TV show idea on the spot. This episode first aired on May 21, 2023. 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 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

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• 0:53Speaker 01

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• 1:24Bill Maher?

  While you were remodeling your backyard to make it more, you know, zen-y, we were remodeling our merch store to make it more random. We slapped our new logo on T-shirts, tie-dyes, hoodies, and hats, and all with premium-printed labels. Look, I wasn't kidding. We have it because tags are like the junk mail of clothing. All merch is available exclusively at clubrandom.com. Once again, that's clubrandom.com. Well, this week's Club Random classic is Kathy Griffin. I love Kathy Griffin, one of the few people who can honestly say she was investigated by the federal government over a comedy bit. I'm one of the others, probably.

• 2:08Bill Maher?

  We talk about the Trump photo, the friends who vanished, the career she had to rebuild, and what happens when the outrage machine finds a new victim but leaves you holding the bill. Kathy and I don't agree on everything, thank God, but she's funny, fearless, and constitutionally incapable of giving you the sanitized version. It is a conversation about comedy, survival, and refusing to disappear. Oh, they always hide.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Where is she?

• 2:36Bill Maher?

  Oh!

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Bill, it's here!

• 2:38Bill Maher?

  Thank God your hair is so bright.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  The redhead in the corner!

• 2:41Bill Maher?

  Hello, darling.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  Hello, sweetheart. Come here.

• 2:44Bill Maher?

  How are you?

• 2:45Speaker 03

  How've you been?

• 2:46Bill Maher?

  I've been OK.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Yeah?

• 2:48Bill Maher?

  I know you've had your ups and downs and...

• 2:49Speaker 03

  I have.

• 2:51Bill Maher?

  But I never, ever think they get you down. No, really, you're not the type to go down. You're just a fighter. Your whole thing is...I mean, not your whole thing, you're hysterically funny, but you're a fighter, so I never really worried about you.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  The bad thing is I'm a street fighter, so along the way, I've made some enemies, but I'm trying to turn into more of a strategic fighter.

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  That would be great.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  And at 62 years young, I'm really going to change this time. I really am.

• 3:21Bill Maher?

  You know what? That's a great, that's a great thing to say because, first of all, you can never get to any age where you go, "Oh, I've stopped," especially when it's about making mistakes.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:31Bill Maher?

  I do the same thing. I look back even five, 10 years and go, "Oh, what a dumbass thing I did."

• 3:37Speaker 03

  The stuff I would...by the way, I thought I was doing it for, like, the work, but like, the stuff I thought, I thought everything was a battle. I thought, whether it's a piece of the set dressing that I feel strongly about, or, you know, whatever, my own writing, and looking back, not everything was the same level battle that I kind of treated it like.

• 4:00Bill Maher?

  That's funny that you...that's also great that you recognize that because that is exactly how I saw you, as, "Why does this girl make everything a battle? I thought you must like it because you were always doing..." Really? You know, who fights with the left and the right? Very few. I do, but, you know, I guess I'm crazy too. But I mean, to the point of getting canceled by both.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:25Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 4:26Speaker 03

  And by the way, canceled is sort of an adorable way of putting it. Remember, he was under investigation by the Department of Justice, the US Attorney's Office, the Secret Service.

• 4:36Bill Maher?

  Well, that's insane.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  You know, no-fly list.

• 4:38Bill Maher?

  That's so insane.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  But also, look, as you know, it's not that hard to scare off buyers. And the buyers, really, I think until maybe just very recently, have been scared off.

• 4:49Bill Maher?

  Buyers of what?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, the buyers, like, the networks, the streamers.

• 4:52Bill Maher?

  Oh, people who might buy the Kathy Griffin product.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, buy the Kathy Griffin...

• 4:56Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  But also even to feel safe having Kathy Griffin at their theater. You know what I mean?

• 5:01Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  So...

• 5:03Bill Maher?

  No, I know, I know you, when you did the Trump picture...

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, which, God, you know, when you look back on it, when you look back, I look back at my 9/11 thing, and it all just seems surreal and so...

• 5:17Speaker 03

  No.

• 5:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, I thought it was stupid at the time, and I thought what they did to you was stupid at the time, and I remember I had you on to say that. But when you look back, it's even stupider.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. And compared to the other stuff that we should have been focusing on, it was a classic.

• 5:30Bill Maher?

  The paranoia of, just also what's so annoying about that is it's what I hate about our culture: robotic things, you know, TSA. Things where like, "Oh, you know, if you handle this like a human, like the Israelis handle security." I remember being in Israel and going through security, and I had a thermos that looked just like the bottom of a bomb. Now, if this was the TSA, just like, "Are you kidding? They just go by the rules? We only know this rule, and the rule is if you take a picture with Trump's head, you're a dangerous person."

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:05Bill Maher?

  Whereas like in Israel, when they found the thing, this very intelligent, and in Israel, they are ex-military intelligence who do this at the airport, interrogated me, interrogated, asked me like eight questions and was like, "OK, I'm an intelligent person. I see this is an American comedian, he's making a movie over here. This is really is a thermos for cereal."

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:26Bill Maher?

  They could just tell because they're using their mind.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:29Bill Maher?

  As opposed to what happened to you is more examples of that. "No, we're robots. This is the rule and..."

• 6:36Speaker 03

  She is going to cause beheadings in an innumerable fashion, more than you can ever imagine, and she is just as, she is no different than a bride of ISIS. She's Kathy Griffin bride of ISIS. That was the shtick. Now, I'm only eating baby parts with you, Hillary Clinton, and Tom Hanks. And by the way, Seth Green, did you know the Qs have been going for poor Seth Green?

• 7:00Bill Maher?

  No, why?

• 7:01Speaker 03

  They think that for some reason Seth Green, they think he was like one of the original people at Comet Pizza in the basement with Hillary harvesting baby parts. And I've talked to Seth about like what it's like to have the whole Q world not just come at you.

• 7:17Bill Maher?

  Seth Green, voice of Chris Griffin?

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Yes! Yes, from like the teen movies with red hair as a fellow ginger.

• 7:23Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  But they're convinced Tom Hanks is harvesting the baby parts.

• 7:28Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  And that shit didn't happen seven years ago. I'm just telling you. My whole career for the crap I got in trouble with, I went this too far with a celebrity, whatever, nothing like the stuff, the group thing.

• 7:43Bill Maher?

  I think when historians look back on this period and they write about it, from many years later, they won't be where we are, where we're in the pits of it, so we, everything is binary and we see the left and the right. They will just look from their vantage point and see America went crazy and that everything that the left did or whoever started it, and the right's reaction and the left's reaction to that was sort of a cause and effect, whereas if you're this crazy, we're going to get this crazy about our shit.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:18Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 8:19Speaker 03

  By the way, God willing, people see that because I am terrified in what do we do with this world that is devoid of opinions? It's just deciding this fact is a fact and this fact isn't a fact.

• 8:30Bill Maher?

  Right. But I mean, this kind of thing, what you're talking about, like the, OK, they're going to, the historians are going to go like, "Yes, at a certain point, so many percentage of the Republicans thought Democrats were eating babies."

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:46Bill Maher?

  And the Democratic response is, "We're going to insist that it's possible for every man to be pregnant." It's going to go, "Oh, I see. I see what happened back in 20, in the 2020s in America."

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Now, can we please talk about, because you and I share this, we both are childless, therefore heretics.

• 9:05Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  And what would, how would a young Bill Maher deal with all the new laws if boys could get pregnant too?

• 9:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, I mean, Bill Maher...

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Like, how old would you have been when you were knocked up if you were a chick?

• 9:21Bill Maher?

  What's that?

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Like, how old would you have been when you have gotten knocked up when you were a chick? Like, do you think you would have gotten knocked up at your teens?

• 9:28Bill Maher?

  If I was a woman?

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:30Bill Maher?

  If I was born a woman?

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, would you not have kids till you're married?

• 9:33Bill Maher?

  It's, oh, God, Kathy, to ask me what would be in my head if I was a woman, I mean, I'm not usually stuck for an answer about a lot of things, but I'm stuck for it because I'm, you know, I guess I'm very much unlike so many of the young people today where gender is fluid and it's just always a jump ball when you're born and you can switch back and forth, sometimes in the middle of a conversation, really. You identify and then you identify in a different way on mood. I feel like I came from an era, I was just created, like, I mean, I'm not going to say I'm a Marine or anything, but I am all man. You know, I just do not think like a woman, I do not act like one, or even a gay man, you know?

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:15Bill Maher?

  So, I mean, and I know, and I've talked...

• 10:17Speaker 03

  You'd be like me. You'd just simply be a female who chose not to have kids, perhaps.

• 10:21Bill Maher?

  Right. No, I mean, I could have been your doppelganger in many ways. Or in an alternate universe, we could have been married.

• 10:30Bill Maher?

  Let's pretend we're married. We're in our chairs.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  I am married, but I waited 10 years to marry the dude. So we've been together 13, we only got married. And I have to tell you, our wedding day, our wedding day was New Year's Eve. Because I thought, you know, after getting canned from CNN, let me have some more positive to like celebrate around New Year's. So that part was great. And the best part is, we did it New Year's Eve 2020. Convinced 2020 was gonna be the greatest year. What a shitstorm.

• 11:02Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  What a shitstorm.

• 11:04Bill Maher?

  How did that affect you as newlyweds? But you, again, you knew each other for a decade.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  We were living together, we had a second house together, all that stuff.

• 11:11Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, look, I know you've been through all this shit with cancer. I feel like it now.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  What?

• 11:23Bill Maher?

  I've always thought cancer was bad, and I don't care who's gonna argue with me. That's my position.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:28Bill Maher?

  But I swear to God, I feel like it's made you a better person.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Well, I do think, first of all, I think people can see me as a human being for the first time in a while. And I've just noticed a lot of people reaching out to me on social media just saying, I didn't like this about you, I don't like that, but I'm wishing you well, or whatever.

• 11:46Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Or like, well, regardless, you're a survivor, or something like that. So there's that. And also, of course, it changes you because, first of all, as you can tell, I actually sustained some injuries during my surgery.

• 11:57Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  They had to take out half my left lung. They damaged my vocal cord permanently. I also have like an aperture up here. So my voice may never come back to full speed.

• 12:06Bill Maher?

  I kinda like it this way.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Really?

• 12:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  I'm so afraid, though, I can't do impressions. You get a car, you get a car. I mean, you know it's Oprah, right?

• 12:14Bill Maher?

  You were never an impressionist.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  I'm working on it. I'm a work in progress. I might audition for SNL next year.

• 12:20Bill Maher?

  That's not why your fans love you. It's like, oh, I wanna see Kathy Ribbon do impressions. They wanna see you do your thing, which is, you know, great. And, you know, you carved out a place, you know, you like, you know, you just did it. You had a, there was a niche there in show business, and you were like, I'm going for it, and succeeded. And then, yes, you did fight with too many people.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  I know.

• 12:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, what?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Like every executive.

• 12:47Bill Maher?

  Like, you're still not friends with Anderson Cooper?

• 12:50Speaker 03

  No, but that was like a little more of a friendship. Like, that was a kind of a personal thing, you know? Because that was like a tough.

• 12:57Bill Maher?

  But like, will you ever get over that with him?

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Sure, of course.

• 13:00Bill Maher?

  Oh, you will?

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:01Bill Maher?

  He knows that too? Or is that just what you know?

• 13:04Speaker 03

  I mean, that may, I don't know that he's interested. But I mean, you know, I also don't have like a need to like hang out with people that maybe weren't so kosher.

• 13:15Bill Maher?

  Were you really friends with Anderson Cooper?

• 13:17Speaker 03

  I thought so, yeah.

• 13:18Bill Maher?

  Like the kind of, I mean.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Like, I didn't think we were Hollywood friends. I thought we were legit friends.

• 13:23Bill Maher?

  Right. Okay, because they do throw the word friend around a lot in show business. And I always say this, the difference between friend and friendly.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:33Bill Maher?

  Like, there's a lot of Lees out there. I got a lot of Lees.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:38Bill Maher?

  But friend is like somebody who, you have their phone number.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  You bear your souls to each other. You're there for each other when this one's having a tough day, yeah.

• 13:46Bill Maher?

  So you had that with Anderson Cooper?

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I miss that, you know what I mean? So it's hard. But I'll tell you, I also.

• 13:52Bill Maher?

  Was he just like he is on the air? Asking probing questions about your, and your day?

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:59Bill Maher?

  Let's, let's get some background information on your day.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  He does have like a newscaster voice. I mean, not as, but I'll tell you, I was also really, probably closer with is I loved his mom, Gloria Vanderbilt. I mean, those were evenings.

• 14:12Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Like, I actually stole one of her ideas, and I know you're a big fan of these too, but I've been having these salons at my house, and they've been one of the ways that during my quote cancellation, I've been kind of staying sane. Just 10 people, phones down, real conversation. Smarties, like people that you kind of cast, like Sue Mengers was a friend of mine.

• 14:35Bill Maher?

  Absolutely. If people don't know, Bette Midler, the great Bette Midler did a, played Sue Mengers.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  On Broadway?

• 14:43Bill Maher?

  Broadway, I don't think, was it out here? I don't know, but it was definitely on Broadway. What was it called?

• 14:47Speaker 03

  I forgot the name of the show.

• 14:48Bill Maher?

  Something about lunch or something.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:50Bill Maher?

  But anyway, it was about, she played this super agent, Sue Mengers, who was a real person, I certainly knew her quite well. She was the first powerful woman agent.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  And she repped Ryan O'Neal at the height of his fame.

• 15:04Bill Maher?

  Barbara Streisand.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streisand, Steve McQueen.

• 15:07Bill Maher?

  Yes. And I remember the first time I went to her house, she showed me the 60 Minutes piece they did on her. It was very Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, like, come in. I mean, she must have shown this to 1,000 people, and it was from the 70s.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  So what?

• 15:23Bill Maher?

  I understand, but like, it was like, Sue, I know who you are. You don't have to show me the 60 Minutes piece, but of course, it meant a lot.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  She looked better in that caftan than the one she was wearing. But remember how she would talk to the staff?

• 15:34Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Grass. She would just scream grass.

• 15:37Bill Maher?

  I used to bring her grass.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Well, good for you.

• 15:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  That's what a good Sue Mengers friend does.

• 15:42Bill Maher?

  I was an enabler.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  But those evenings were special because.

• 15:45Bill Maher?

  So special. There was, it was always like the most A-list crowd. Sue could, Sue had the kind of clout that she could summon anybody.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:54Bill Maher?

  I remember being in, so it was like a mix of old Hollywood, like her old cronies who were, of course, iconic A-list figures.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Jack Nicholson.

• 16:01Bill Maher?

  Jack Nicholson.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Lorne Michaels.

• 16:03Bill Maher?

  Neil Diamond.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Martin, yeah, Neil Diamond.

• 16:07Bill Maher?

  Julia, but then there would be Julia Roberts, I remember, meeting there.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Daniel Craig.

• 16:11Bill Maher?

  Daniel Craig, I remember what, like, she would just say, I want this person. I saw, that's how I was there. She saw me on TV and said, get me Bill Maher. And I was thrilled to go.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  She invited me by fax. My agent called and said, you have a fax. I said, fantastic. And she invited me after I won my first Emmy. And I got up there and I said, you know, a lot of celebrities think Jesus for their Emmys.

• 16:36Bill Maher?

  Oh, I remember that.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Suck it, Jesus, this award is my God now.

• 16:39Bill Maher?

  It was a great one.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  My first cancellation.

• 16:41Bill Maher?

  Great one.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  I just wanna say, my first cancellation. But she called me and said, you've earned a seat at the table.

• 16:48Bill Maher?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  And yeah, I got to meet such fascinating people. And I learned, and this is how I try to do my dinners, my guests know I want nothing from them. I don't care how famous they are, I'm not gonna ask anything of them. I'm not hitting them up for part of the movie.

• 17:03Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  Like, it's literally just like, I just want your company. And I'm telling you, I do lunches and dinners, and I just live for them, you know?

• 17:10Bill Maher?

  But didn't, didn't somebody get mad at you because they thought you were like sharing too much about their personal life? Didn't you have one of those feuds?

• 17:19Speaker 03

  I don't know, but like.

• 17:20Bill Maher?

  Like some woman, like.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Some of, look, some of these folks, remember, they were like 80, 85 years of age. So I mean.

• 17:28Bill Maher?

  No, this was somebody younger who I feel like you were chummy with.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 17:32Bill Maher?

  Some woman, and then.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Is it Brooke Shields? Are you gonna bring up Brooke Shields?

• 17:36Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  No, it wasn't Brooke Shields, but Brooke Shields I was on a TV show with for four years.

• 17:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I remember that show.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  And I love her, and she's maybe not a giant fan of mine.

• 17:43Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Because I talked about, I know it's a shock, but it's because I talked about, you know, going to her wedding in one of my specials, which she had come to see live and thought it was great, but then had a change of heart, like seeing it, you know?

• 17:57Bill Maher?

  Because you talked about her?

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:00Bill Maher?

  You know what you have to do? You have to do like, remember that show, Something Earl? Where he went around, it was kind of like taken from the AA thing where you go around and make amends to all the people.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:12Bill Maher?

  And you should do that with the shit list of people.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  I know, Jesus, so long. It's like a scroll.

• 18:19Bill Maher?

  You gotta go to Anderson.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  But that's what my fans want, though. The problem is, my fans wanna hear, that's what they want.

• 18:25Bill Maher?

  That could be a show. One week, you go to Anderson Cooper, and you make up with him, and then the next week.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  What did I do to Anderson Cooper?

• 18:33Bill Maher?

  I don't know, but you have to make up with him.

• 18:34Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 18:35Bill Maher?

  Right? Okay, he's not talking to you. Then you go to Brooke Shields, and you just go down this list. I mean, you'd have a whole season.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Okay, then you have to do the same thing to Congress. You have to go down the list.

• 18:46Bill Maher?

  Well, and the last one would be Trump for you.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Okay, really?

• 18:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  And how, what do I get out of that scenario?

• 18:52Bill Maher?

  I don't know, bring him somebody else's head. As a gesture, bring another head.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  I have so many choices.

• 18:58Bill Maher?

  Or at least cut off an ear, you know, something like that.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  Start small.

• 19:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  I know.

• 19:03Bill Maher?

  But, so who else is on this shit list? I forget, but I.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  I don't know who's on the shit list. I mean, I will say, once you.

• 19:10Bill Maher?

  Who you're on their shit list.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Once you've been canceled to the degree that I have, or like you said, Hollywood turned on me, you know, I haven't, like, I haven't been able to make money, meaning be in the red for, wait, in the black? Which one is it, which is the good one, black?

• 19:26Bill Maher?

  The black.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Okay, I haven't been in the black for six years. No, I'm not crying poor. I've done well, all this other stuff, I'm thrilled. But that sucks. Like, if somebody had just turned off your phone.

• 19:39Bill Maher?

  Terrible.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  If you went from this life that you live today. And look, you got a million gigs, but I'm just saying, I was busy.

• 19:45Bill Maher?

  Sweetheart, I get it.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  And to have no one call for six years.

• 19:49Bill Maher?

  That's, that is a, that is a.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  That's no joke.

• 19:53Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Six years.

• 19:55Bill Maher?

  But now it's over, you're out of show business, jail.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Here's what I think. I think that if the mirage called after six years, I feel like if the mirage is having me back.

• 20:04Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  And as you know, Vegas is not edgy. Vegas is middle America. People go to Vegas. And I think if I'm safe in Vegas, I think it's a big sign.

• 20:13Bill Maher?

  Vegas, no, that's not true anymore. When I first played Vegas, opening for Diana Ross.

• 20:21Bill Maher?

  It was exactly that. It was just really square. But now Vegas is so big. First of all, the town itself is a town you could play, even if it didn't have the tourists, because it's a big town. I get a lot of townies. I bet you, you do too. Okay.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  If you mean gay showboys, you're damn right I do, honey. Every last one of them.

• 20:40Bill Maher?

  Right. And then, beyond that, I mean, if you have, I don't know how many people are in town from out of town, but there is enough, I mean, to fill a, I mean, I play the comedy, I played The Mirage for years.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:53Bill Maher?

  And that theater was like, I don't know.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Twelve fifty.

• 20:55Bill Maher?

  Twelve fifty?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:56Bill Maher?

  Okay. So out of the, yes, even if it's one out of a hundred, there's plenty of hip people in town, because hip people like to go and have fun in Vegas, too.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:05Bill Maher?

  You're right. They're far outnumbered by the people.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  But remember, this is also the town that when Linda Ronstadt dedicated, you know, Desperado to Michael Moore, not only did she get booed off the stage at Caesar's, she was walked out by security. Linda Ronstadt.

• 21:19Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  An icon, a legend.

• 21:21Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  You know, that wasn't, not in our lifetime.

• 21:24Bill Maher?

  You're right. That's interesting.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  I think the buyers in Vegas, they gotta please a lot of masters. And I'm just saying, for me, I think it's a significant thing that it's my first gig I've had in six years where they actually offered me the money they did six years ago. Meaning, in a good way. Meaning, it wasn't, "Come do this for free."

• 21:42Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  "We're doing you a favor if you come host my charity for free again."

• 21:46Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Like, it's been six years of, "I'm helping you by you coming and suiting up," you know? So it just feels good to have, like, a gig.

• 21:55Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, what America does so well is do stupid things. And then, like, a few years later, usually, I remember this happened with, oh, God, everybody from Don Imus, and some people get canceled permanently, but there's a lot of, "Oh, yeah, maybe we did overreact."

• 22:13Speaker 03

  I hope so. I'm banking on it. I am banking on it.

• 22:16Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Because, by the way, the reverse is horrifying. Like, the people are still walking around, being like, "That bitch kind of deserves it."

• 22:23Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  But if you say to somebody, if someone, you know, like, the way I described to you, if you were just, woke up and you had no job the next day, by the way, almost no friends.

• 22:33Bill Maher?

  And also, you've paid the price. I mean, this, look, I'm gonna say something now. I hope it doesn't bother you or people in the audience, and I'm admitting before I say it, it's pure conjecture, but from everything I know about medicine and health, I'm a believer in the mind-body connection. And we don't know exactly what causes cancer for sure, or else we could go and have it diagnosed, but stress, extreme stress, yes, I think is very, very involved in, you know.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, I got lung cancer. It's not my family. I never smoked.

• 23:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  It's a tumor, ironically, that had been there since 2009 and not grown. Then all of a sudden, it's double in size, and then it's like, "We gotta get it out in three weeks, and we're taking half the lung."

• 23:27Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  You know, so I, I know.

• 23:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  I agree. I'm with you.

• 23:31Bill Maher?

  So I'm just saying, for the folks who want to punish you forever for your non-crimes, just think about that, you know? The, you got your price of your pound of flesh.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Pound of flesh, yeah.

• 23:45Bill Maher?

  Or however much that tumor weighed.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:47Bill Maher?

  And, almost literally.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:49Bill Maher?

  And besides not making the money, and also just the, just the days of wondering about your future and your past.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  But Bill, if you couldn't make people laugh anymore, come on, you know that what that does to us.

• 24:04Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  It's not just a daily routine.

• 24:06Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  You no longer can even, like, make people laugh on social media without, you know what I mean? Like, it's, taking that away's been the hardest thing.

• 24:15Bill Maher?

  It would be like cutting off the last 10 inches of my penis.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  And we don't have those to spare, because we got the first three feet, and then we roll it back up for the next girl. Now, what's going on in your love life, I'm afraid to ask?

• 24:26Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  Go on.

• 24:27Bill Maher?

  Mom.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Don't be shy.

• 24:29Bill Maher?

  Mom.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 24:30Bill Maher?

  First of all, I don't, I don't.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  First of all, I was there for classy, honey. Don't act like we don't go back.

• 24:34Bill Maher?

  I don't talk.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  We fucking go back.

• 24:35Bill Maher?

  I don't talk about my personal life. I really don't.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  You're so full of shit.

• 24:38Bill Maher?

  I don't. Not, not.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Why don't you brag about it?

• 24:42Bill Maher?

  First of all, because.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  Can you get a date, Bill?

• 24:45Bill Maher?

  No. There you go. That's it. That's what it is. And also, I'm just, I'm just focused on helping and healing America. I wish I had time for social life, but my complete dedication is to healing the rift in our nation. So that's where I am.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Wow. You're just, like, um.

• 25:05Bill Maher?

  A saint.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  A saint, and also, or duct tape? All right, now, this is, you know, as you talk about a lot, I talk about, you know, knowing what you can talk about on stage, because I sort of think this is funny, but I don't know if the audience would, but I am being sort of humorous, but not kidding, when I say, "I now give the planet seven years." I used to be like 30.

• 25:28Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Then, how do you see us keeping up this pace, and for how long?

• 25:33Bill Maher?

  It's so interesting you put it that way, because it sounds to me like what they've always said since I've lived out here about earthquakes.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:40Bill Maher?

  Which is like, "Oh, the big one is coming."

• 25:43Speaker 03

  The fault.

• 25:44Bill Maher?

  The fault. And it, I mean, the big one is coming.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:47Bill Maher?

  There, there's no doubt about that.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  But climate change is not the big one.

• 25:50Bill Maher?

  No, I'm talking about, I'm talking about.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  This is the slow roll.

• 25:52Bill Maher?

  I'm talking about an earthquake.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:53Bill Maher?

  I'm just making analogy, because I thought it was interesting the way you put it. And I have had that feeling since I moved here about the earthquakes, which is, okay, you keep saying we're due, and then we're really due, and in the last 10 years, going back almost 10 years, I remember people saying, maybe not in so many words, but letting the people who will, kind of could read between the lines know, "This is going to come in the next 10 years." And now we're almost up to that 10-year point when I, before, when I heard that.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:23Bill Maher?

  So, like, it's the same thing with global warming and the destruction of the planet environmentally. Is it going to happen? Yes, I believe it is, too. Seven years? Probably not, but possibly. Like, we're spinning the wheel on it. It could be seven, or it could be 70, or it could be never, because they figure out how to fucking foil it.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:46Bill Maher?

  Or maybe they were, I mean, look, they're, they're not always right, but I wish they would stop predicting environmental repercussions, because they've done it a lot, and it hasn't happened. Like, in 2003, James Hansen, the NASA guy, was like, "If we don't completely reverse what we're doing in 10 years, it's too late." Well, it's like 13 years past that deadline, and they're still saying it's not too late, because you can't ever say it's too late.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:17Bill Maher?

  It possibly is too late. We possibly already cast the dice. But we don't know. So, seven years? I wouldn't take that bet, but it's, it should be on the table.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:29Bill Maher?

  That's, so.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Now, as you travel the country, you are, like, I, I remember, it's been so long since I toured America, seven, six years, I'm sorry, five years. But I remember, like, I think it was an Indiana gig I would play once a year, and I'd pass the one barn with the Confederate flag on the roof. That was one place. And I could always open with that story. "Oh, you guys still let that guy live here? I've been around," you know? So, what do you make of the MAGA's that live in the areas maybe most impacted by climate change? And they are still in their denial, and why? When it's, when you're a farmer, when your job depends on the weather?

• 28:10Bill Maher?

  Well, first of all, they're not all in denial. I mean, there is plenty of farmers who are on that page. I mean, they're not idiots, necessarily. They're, but the other reasons why I think people are sort of in the dark about global warming, sometimes it just, if they're in their own news silos, it doesn't get on their radar. They don't report it on Fox News.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:32Bill Maher?

  It's just not an issue. It's not like an issue they disagree with. It just really doesn't exist. Except to sometimes have debunkers on. And there are reasonable people, like Bjorn Lorneberg, who is, you know, somebody, I think maybe MSNBC won't have him on. And he's not a crazy person, but he has a different view of what's going on with the climate. He doesn't deny that this is happening. He's being just more measured about it. I don't agree with everything he says, but I listen to him, and he's not crazy. That kind of person, they don't, you know, we don't. We don't allow that kind of person anymore. You have to be all in on what your team is doing.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:13Bill Maher?

  So on Fox News, they don't hear about global warming. And then, they also are religious. I remember the Oklahoma Senator Jim Imhoff once said, he's the guy who brought a snowball into Congress once to prove that global warming was false, that you can't write this shit. And he said, his idea about global warming was, yeah, God's still up there. Okay, you can't argue with God's still up there. It's just not on it, we're just, you're playing tennis and I'm playing soccer on a different field. And so, it's just not, and it's, you know.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  But that's what I wonder how, I don't mean any farmers in those regions, I mean, if you're a MAGA person and you're a farmer, how do you reconcile what your eyes and ears see in front of you and what your...

• 29:56Bill Maher?

  Okay, but what do your eyes and ears see in front of you? They see the same world as it's always been. Yes, sometimes...

• 30:02Speaker 03

  More floods, water's rising.

• 30:04Bill Maher?

  But you know what, floods do come and go. And floods have been here forever, it's in the Bible. So, like, how much of that is global warming? My view would be, some. There are souped up conditions that create more, or blah, blah, blah. But like, we were going apoplectic here in California for a very long time because it never rained. And then what happened this year? It fucking rained until the people here were saying, "Good God, would it stop raining?" And in one, like, month-long period, we kind of got out of the drought emergency.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  No, because we don't have, we don't have the ability to capture it.

• 30:40Bill Maher?

  No, that would make it better, but we stopped, I read, we like, the reservoirs have water in them, the LA River is actually a river again. I mean, what I'm saying is, it's partly cyclical, and this shit has always gone on, and that's what a farmer sees. And there is an element of global warming changing things. But since it's basically the same shit, the sun comes out, it's not like the seasons have ended, it rains, it doesn't rain, there's good, there's bad. This is farmer's life, is like, "Oh, I hope it rains this year, oh, I hope it's a good harvest." This is why, one reason they started religion. So you could pray to somebody and say, "For fuck's sake, would you make the corn grow? Because we gotta make soda."

• 31:25Bill Maher?

  "Oh, wait, we don't make soda yet, we're ancient people."

• 31:27Speaker 03

  But still, there's a reason you have a deity, to pray for crops.

• 31:30Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  And by the way, I was, even I was shocked, well, I shouldn't say even I, I'm a Chicagoan, I didn't know how much of the hate that was coming toward me was also, made lots of Jesus tie-ins. Like, people would go religious very quickly.

• 31:45Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, very quickly. So, I learned that that marriage is more than I was even aware of. Like, I would say, 90% of the folks that have a problem with me, at some point, they'll bring in Jesus. And usually, they are what I would call extremely religious. I mean, I was raised Catholic. It didn't take, but they tried.

• 32:04Bill Maher?

  Well, I have the same haters, I mean, one of the...

• 32:05Speaker 03

  Wait, were you, did you go to Catholic school, ever?

• 32:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, I went to catechism. That's where you learn to be...

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Every Sunday?

• 32:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, that's where you learn to be a Catholic. It's like, you know, it was two hours.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  You're not getting to heaven with just catechism once a week, Bill. You're not even close. You gotta go to church every day.

• 32:23Bill Maher?

  God, I was...

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Gotta say the rosary, you gotta be molested. You gotta do a lot, it's very proactive.

• 32:28Bill Maher?

  When I think about this stress that I worry about now, it was, it's nothing compared to the knot in my stomach that involved going to the catechism school. Because school made me very nervous, also, regular school, you know, I was easily bullied and shy, and, but catechism with, these were kids I didn't know from like, other towns, and the classroom was way bigger. And there seemed to me there was a thousand desks and kids in that school. And the nuns were very strict and mean, and they were not like...

• 33:05Speaker 03

  There was a lot of fire and brimstone?

• 33:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they were not like the nice teacher I had, who, you know, wore sweaters and I could look at her tits, and this was a nut.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  You have what's called a lay teacher. They don't count. They're not divine. They don't even know God, probably.

• 33:19Bill Maher?

  So to go from that, normal school, and then to see these, these mean, seemed like a thousand-year-old creatures in the black shroud, you know, it's scary, just that outfit is fucking scary.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, it's supposed to be. I mean, you don't know what the fuck's in there. But you know, some's in there. Some kind of trouble is in there.

• 33:38Bill Maher?

  Some meanie, someone was mean to me.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Bad shit's in there, yeah, yeah.

• 33:43Bill Maher?

  So, but you know what? I guess that's the kind of thing that people bleat about in therapy for the rest of their lives. I just, I don't get that. I mean, it's like, yeah, was it traumatic? Yeah. The last thing I want to do is remember it. You know, isn't that, don't we have a mechanism, don't you think, as humans, to purposely forget and bury?

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Purposely not have to remember every minute of catechism and just kind of remember a couple lightning bolts in a few seconds?

• 34:10Bill Maher?

  Wouldn't you like to forget all the trauma that you've had?

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Yes, oh my gosh, absolutely.

• 34:15Bill Maher?

  You know, you've walked through fires.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  I mean, the cancer shit is gnarly and just, you know. Plus, just people have like, confronted me physically so many times, like, I can't tell you, not so much anymore. But you know, it was...

• 34:28Bill Maher?

  Confronted physically?

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Oh, everything. I've had people strike me on the street.

• 34:31Bill Maher?

  Strike you?

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Strike me, yeah.

• 34:33Bill Maher?

  Strike you as what?

• 34:35Speaker 03

  As a very talented young lady. No, and, and people like, feel very entitled to come up and, "There's something about my face that says, 'Come up to me right now and tell me exactly what you think.'" It says...

• 34:49Bill Maher?

  Well, there is, well, that's sort of a backhanded compliment to your skill as a communicator, and to how much people, you know, relate to you and see you as a real person, and so they want to, you know, like, movie stars are the opposite a lot of times. People, they say, you know, some big stars can walk down the street, and like, people don't stop them, even though they might gawk, because it's like, "Oh, they're bigger than life, I can't know them." But with you, especially TV is that kind of medium, and live performance, of course, they feel like they know you. They feel like, if they got to talk to you, you'd be the same person who you are on stage, and you pretty much are.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  I kind of, I'm pretty the same.

• 35:31Bill Maher?

  I am too.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  But I'm talking about the MAGA's that want to come back and tell me, give me a piece of their mind. They don't even know my work from before, they just know me as the mean picture lady.

• 35:39Bill Maher?

  And where do you encounter them?

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Walking down the street.

• 35:42Bill Maher?

  What street is this?

• 35:43Speaker 03

  I remember one time, well...

• 35:45Bill Maher?

  It's not in Los Feliz.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  Bill, I might walk down the street a little more often.

• 35:48Bill Maher?

  What street is this? It's not in Los Feliz, it's not in...

• 35:52Speaker 03

  San Francisco, I had...

• 35:53Bill Maher?

  San Francisco?

• 35:54Speaker 03

  San Francisco, right in the Embarcadero, like, four people were very upset. I was in a restaurant, a really fancy, kind of fancy restaurant in Santa Monica, and a woman, and a woman was like, at the front, at the hostess station, yelling and pointing and asking me to be removed from the restaurant.

• 36:11Bill Maher?

  But what, do you know what their specific beef was with you? Was it the Trump head?

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, it's the Trump head.

• 36:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, it's always the Trump head.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  It's always the Trump head. Yeah, it's, and by the way, even the QAnons, a couple of licks in, they're like, "Because of the Trump head."

• 36:25Bill Maher?

  I see.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  So, all the QAnons, it all goes back to, you tried to kill President Trump.

• 36:33Bill Maher?

  It's very, it's very cartoon of Mohammed.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:37Bill Maher?

  It really, you know, like, some things just hit people, humans, like, in a certain way, and they, it gives them license to then just say to themselves, "Well, that was so beyond the pale that I can do anything..."

• 36:53Speaker 03

  This person deserves anything.

• 36:54Bill Maher?

  To this person. "I can go into the Charlie Edbo offices and shoot these cartoonists and feel very good about myself."

• 37:02Speaker 03

  But they also don't think...

• 37:03Bill Maher?

  And you hit that nerve, so...

• 37:04Speaker 03

  It's like, "Thank you, America, you're welcome, America, I took the one for the team."

• 37:09Bill Maher?

  That is quite, you know, I mean, there is some pride in going deep.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:15Bill Maher?

  You went, you went deep.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  I'm a thinker, you know, I'm a thinker, I made people think, damn it.

• 37:19Bill Maher?

  And that thing really wasn't even your idea, was it? It was the photographer's, right?

• 37:23Speaker 03

  No, I kind of, I collaborated with him, I said, "Look, you know, I'd like to do something about Trump in some way," you know, and then, one of us thought of the head, one of us thought of the blood coming out of his, wherever, and that was about as deep as it went, although Hillary Clinton thought it was Medusa and Perseus, so let's just go with that.

• 37:41Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Doesn't that sound smart? She goes, "I just assumed she was doing Medusa and Perseus." I was like, "Me too."

• 37:46Bill Maher?

  Well, Hillary Clinton, excuse me, was a presidential candidate, the valedictorian at Wesleyan, and the first woman on the moon, so...

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Just like Trump. Just like Trump. Same diff. Do you remember the time, my old friend Bill? Do you remember the time that we were at a Larry King party at Larry's house? And who's the producer that sent us to a restaurant on his tab? A really good Italian place. Jerry Weintraub? He's no longer with us.

• 38:14Bill Maher?

  You're right. I do vaguely remember. I remember the restaurant. It's on Robertson.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  Yes, it's a really good Italian place.

• 38:21Bill Maher?

  Il Piccolino or something like that?

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:23Bill Maher?

  Okay, I do remember that.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  And I was with actually a guy that I knew from New York. And he was in town and we went and we had the best time. But was it Jerry Weintraub?

• 38:30Bill Maher?

  I think it was. I think it was. But somebody like that, yes. It's a shame. Is he not with us?

• 38:37Speaker 03

  I believe he's no longer with us, but I remember that night. I was gonna do a quick eulogy. I hope you don't mind.

• 38:42Bill Maher?

  I don't mind dying. Well, I do. I shouldn't start that with a lie, but let's pretend I don't mind dying.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:48Bill Maher?

  But what I really would mind is ever entering a period in my life where people were always wondering whether I was dead or not.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:58Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 38:59Speaker 03

  You want it to be definitive.

• 39:00Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:01Bill Maher?

  I don't want people to be going, Bill Maher?

• 39:04Speaker 03

  You want to go with the bank.

• 39:06Bill Maher?

  Or, did I read something? Or was that Greg Kinnear who died? You know, I just don't want to, I did that. I cannot take that.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  I get it. I get it. You've got a boundary. You're setting a boundary with destiny.

• 39:17Bill Maher?

  I am.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:18Bill Maher?

  Either know I'm alive or dead or done.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  How do you want to go in your dream world?

• 39:22Bill Maher?

  I don't want to go.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Okay, well, all right, let's start over. How do you want to go again in your dream world?

• 39:29Bill Maher?

  Well, Larry King was, wanted to be frozen. I don't know if he did that, but he talked about that a lot. Like, he didn't want to die. I don't blame him. He loved the Dodgers. And I feel like Larry and I were a lot like that. You know, in the same way. We really liked the different parts of our lives. Of course, his life was very different. He had that, you know, was always married to someone who was causing him emotional distress. I don't know why that worked for him, but he did it eight times. It must have.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:00Bill Maher?

  But he was always, you know, every morning was Nate and Al

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:05Bill Maher?

  with the same crew.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. That's pretty great.

• 40:09Bill Maher?

  Things like, I don't do that because I'm not up in the morning. That, you know, I wouldn't do that exactly. But I have things like that. And I'm, I'm like, when you talk about death, I'm like, no. Because I kind of, I want to see the playoffs next year. Like, if I die, I'll miss the playoffs. And I like the playoffs. So like, come on.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Can we talk about some just epic moments that, admit it, there isn't, there isn't a show anything like Larry King anymore. I'm actually surprised. I thought they should have given that hour to Anderson Cooper. I thought he could have carried on that legacy beautifully. If you wanted that six o'clock hour. But like.

• 40:41Bill Maher?

  Well, I would argue that Joe Rogan is not like Larry King. But it's, it's, every generation has its own iteration of that. And certainly there are differences, but huge audience.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:55Bill Maher?

  Bigger than Larry King ever was.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  But Larry also had that thing where you kind of would go there for the softballs too. Like Paris Hilton went there the day after jail.

• 41:03Bill Maher?

  And I feel like Joe Rogan does that, not softball necessarily. But he's not looking for a fight. And he's, and he's willing to open the mic to people.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  And let the person talk.

• 41:12Bill Maher?

  Right, even the ones that the establishment of some kind or another says, how dare you let that person speak?

• 41:19Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, how is Joe not establishment? Doesn't Joe have like 11 million listeners a day or whatever?

• 41:24Bill Maher?

  Yes, he does. And, but that's, like, how dare you have, you know, doctor? I forget the doctor he had on. And yeah, there's some shady things about that doctor. He's a doctor. And could I just hear him speak? He's, you know, he has credentials. And let's keep an open mind on this versus, oh, no, medicine. It's always set. It's never set. It's the one science that is especially never set.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  I'm just glad you're picking up the ball for Joe Rogan. That guy needs all the help in this industry he can get.

• 41:54Bill Maher?

  No, he, he deserves it.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  No, I know.

• 41:57Bill Maher?

  He did a great thing. But I would say he is our generation's Larry King. In the same way that there was Carson and then Letterman.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:05Bill Maher?

  You know, Leno, and then it moved to Fallon. I mean, it was, that show has evolved quite a bit. Johnny Carson, it was really a talk show.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:14Bill Maher?

  Now it, the talk is.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Johnny, it was 90 Minutes, remember?

• 42:17Bill Maher?

  At the beginning.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:18Bill Maher?

  It's actually 145 at one point.

• 42:20Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 42:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, 145.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  God, the epic stuff that would happen on that show. I mean, that's the one thing you wouldn't get with a Rogan. The weird interactions you'd get with like, John Joey Heatherton. And like, and John Lennon. Or like, just, you know.

• 42:36Bill Maher?

  No, of course. I mean, a podcast is only the talking part. There's no production value and there's no band and there's no monologue. But just for what, what Joe does, he kind of opens that mic like Larry did.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:49Bill Maher?

  And, you know, Elon Musk will do that show. And like, you know, the biggest people in the world. Because they know of the reach. And I just think also, Joe earned that. He, it's like, yeah, this is just a, a regular guy, smarter than the average bear. But is not going to be intimidated, first of all, by you saying, don't platform this guy or don't listen to this. And will let anybody speak. And usually has a common sense view of it of his own. You know, he's a little to the right of where I am on things. I think, I think he, didn't he recently say he was, would vote for Trump or something? I mean, to me, that's beyond the pale.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  But then he also said he actually thought Obama was like the gold standard for like the best president in his lifetime.

• 43:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  You know, like he, you know.

• 43:33Bill Maher?

  I don't get the people who like, just hate Joe Biden. Some, or even Hillary. To me, these people are so bland. Which is really when a Democrat is, is, is good. You know, we want a, a nerd who knows how government works. I mean, yes, it's also a great.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  I also don't want to know their religions. Like, I remember as a kid not knowing the religion the president ever was, you know?

• 43:56Bill Maher?

  We knew Kennedy.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Yes, but that was because, yes, of course. But also our house being Irish, that was like such a big deal.

• 44:03Bill Maher?

  Same with my father.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Oh, God, they could do no wrong in their house.

• 44:06Bill Maher?

  Real, that's so funny. I'm so glad you said that. Because that has exactly been my line my whole life. When people ask about the Kennedys. And exactly what I've said a million times. They could do no wrong.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  Because it was so hard for a freaking Catholic to finally get there.

• 44:19Bill Maher?

  Also Irish.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  We were not going to fuck it up.

• 44:21Bill Maher?

  But also the Irish.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Irish Catholic, yes.

• 44:23Bill Maher?

  Part of it was, you know, because when the Irish here, we were not welcomed. And, you know, you know, Biden's.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  My parents, my parents, no, my parents were here. My grandparents came over steerage on the boat. My mom was the youngest of 16 kids.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 44:36Speaker 03

  16.

• 44:37Bill Maher?

  The fucking Irish, they just.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  They don't fuck around. They don't believe in that.

• 44:40Bill Maher?

  I know, it's crazy.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  That demonic birth control.

• 44:43Bill Maher?

  16 kids.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  The rhythm method, she bragged about it.

• 44:45Bill Maher?

  You know, Biden is in Ireland right now. He's, yeah, Northern Ireland, yeah. And I was reading his

• 44:54Bill Maher?

  great, great grandparents, whatever, came over in 1849. And, you know, there's just this group of us. We kind of look alike.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:06Bill Maher?

  We're just.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Shared experience.

• 45:07Bill Maher?

  But we don't become like an Irish mafia. We're not, we're not, we're not clubby that way. It's just like, hey.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Right. Hey, one of us is doing okay. Right on. But no, for my parents, it was a way bigger deal. I mean, the Irish Catholic thing was just huge, so. Although I had one uncle who was a cop, a bagman, by the way. I kept from a family of cops, some relatives. And he hated Kennedy because of Bobby, mostly. And he famously, because Bobby was like, you know, wanted to, Bobby was a little bit, not necessarily on the side of the police all the time and more on the side of the civil rights.

• 45:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  You know, civil rights movement.

• 45:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  And so, and my uncle was not down with the civil rights movement.

• 45:52Bill Maher?

  Well, Bobby was also head of the Justice Department.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:54Bill Maher?

  So.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 45:56Bill Maher?

  He was the top cop.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  And so my uncle sent us a picture of him pissing on the eternal flame.

• 46:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, God.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:03Bill Maher?

  For real pissing? See, it's in your history.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  But remember, they didn't have cameras that, like, he just did it and.

• 46:09Bill Maher?

  But that's like so, carrying a trumpet. It's like it's in your.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Oh, no, our family bragged about this photo. Because like, isn't Uncle Mo a riot? Like, we thought it was like the greatest thing. Hilarious, ever.

• 46:20Bill Maher?

  Don't you see a connection there?

• 46:22Speaker 03

  Yes, of course. And by the way, we liked JFK. But even still, we're like, well, Uncle Morris, you can't stop him. Now, there was drinking involved, Bill.

• 46:29Bill Maher?

  Did you see the?

• 46:31Speaker 03

  And by the way, in every single member of the family.

• 46:34Bill Maher?

  Did you see the Marilyn Monroe movie with Anna De Armas?

• 46:38Speaker 03

  No, I didn't watch it. I kept hearing it was like, you have to watch her go through all that stuff again.

• 46:44Bill Maher?

  Well, it is unremittingly sad. It's like this.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 46:47Bill Maher?

  This chick never had a one good day in her life.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:50Bill Maher?

  I know, I know, she, they did her terribly. But there's a scene at the end that is so hard to watch if you're a Kennedy lover. Because she's, Kennedy is, here's the scene with Kennedy. She, they bring her in, she's very excited in the, you know, in the car in Washington. You see the Capitol in the background. It's like she's going on a prom date. You know, oh, finally a man who loves me. Whatever. And she, they bring her upstairs.

• 47:14Bill Maher?

  They leave, it's like, I guess his bedroom. They leave the door open. I guess Jackie's out of town. The secret service guy leaves the door open, but sits right outside the door. So he can hear everything that's going on. And Kennedy's in bed. He seems, appears to be naked, but the sheet is up to like, you know, halfway over the chest. And he's on the phone. And he never gets off the phone as he just indicates to her to blow him.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:39Bill Maher?

  And she blows him while he's on the phone. And it's, it's a graphic close up.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  Not a fun gig for her.

• 47:51Bill Maher?

  For Marilyn or the actor, Anna De Armas. I mean, it's, I mean, it's, I found it so disturbing.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. But remember, that was always the joke about Warren Beatty. He can make love to a woman while making a deal on the phone.

• 48:04Bill Maher?

  Oh. It just painted Kennedy as the most selfish, awful prick. So I just want to say, it's made up. Is it, no, is it possible? It's like the seven years thing. Is it possible that Kennedy was exactly like that? It is possible. But let's not forget, you just made it up. You weren't in the room.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 48:26Bill Maher?

  And I prefer to think that John F. Kennedy was a little nicer and wouldn't have just pushed her head down.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  Oh, God. Is she gagging? That's the worst.

• 48:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, kind of.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Then you have no control.

• 48:38Bill Maher?

  That's the, that's the graphic scene where she's just, she's just kind of like. She's like surprised that it's happening. Which, given the rest of the movie and all the guys, seems like a, kind of a stretch that you'd be surprised it's happening. But, I mean, it's just, it's just, you do feel, look, here's what I have to say about Marilyn, and I don't care who disagrees with me. I think she's a candle in the wind.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  Slow clap. End of Hoosiers. The home team finally got a touchdown with the little guy. Slow clap.

• 49:09Bill Maher?

  I've trashed Marilyn Monroe enough in interviews. I'm not gonna do it again.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  You certainly have. I mean, it's your brand.

• 49:15Bill Maher?

  I don't know why I don't.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  I get it.

• 49:17Bill Maher?

  I just really don't.

• 49:18Speaker 03

  Stop beating that dead horse.

• 49:19Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  All right?

• 49:21Bill Maher?

  I'm sorry.

• 49:21Speaker 03

  You're like a Kardashian with lip liner. I get it. You can put it out over and over again.

• 49:26Bill Maher?

  All right. Don't you love the fact that America is like our college campus? And we just like, oh, what's our schedule today? I gotta go over to this, you know, Lindsay Hall.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:38Bill Maher?

  And for my first, and then I go over to this. And we do that with the country.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  I know. It's amazing.

• 49:43Bill Maher?

  We're just gonna go over to Bethlehem Penthol Bay.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  And sometimes it's a casino. Sometimes it's a theater. Sometimes it's a super PAC. Yeah, it's awesome.

• 49:51Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah, I guess a super PAC.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  I mean, um, wait, uh, like a PAC. Sorry, not a super PAC. Performing Arts Center, PAC.

• 50:00Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  Not a super PAC.

• 50:01Bill Maher?

  You're more detail oriented, I guess, than I am. I just think of it all as the same thing. It's just the, you're probably right. I probably, it's the same thing. But to me, it's just the audience.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:10Bill Maher?

  And it's also awesome that unlike bands who have to go through so much bullshit before they actually get to go on stage and sing, we just show up.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  Oh, it's heaven.

• 50:21Bill Maher?

  You know, no sound check? Do you have a mic?

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:24Bill Maher?

  Have you ever talked into it before?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 50:26Bill Maher?

  Okay, make sure that that is working.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:29Bill Maher?

  And we should be good.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:30Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:31Bill Maher?

  Sound, sometimes that, "Sound check. You must be daft. I'm not even, I'm not even in your city yet when you're doing this sound check."

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 50:38Bill Maher?

  And I, okay.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  What happened?

• 50:41Bill Maher?

  No, nothing. Just ranting.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 50:45Bill Maher?

  So, and then what about after that? More gigs?

• 50:48Speaker 03

  After that, we'll see. I mean, I'm probably gonna actually write a proper show about just how the last six years have been just exceptional or something.

• 50:55Bill Maher?

  That's another thing. You have so much great.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  There is. Cancer can be funny.

• 51:00Bill Maher?

  Of course it can.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Eh, which I'm in can be hilarious.

• 51:02Bill Maher?

  It can be funny in the hands of a great comic like you. It can't be funny in the hands of lots of people. I've tried to make cancer funny and boy, it just really, it just really bombed. Like, oh, man, your cancer hunk at that dinner party sucked. I mean, I wanna say that I don't because I have cancer.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Well, I'm not above playing a cancer card. So I will call a restaurant and say, I have cancer. I want a better table.

• 51:26Bill Maher?

  Pain is something you should always use. Otherwise, you get nothing back for it. Art is a receipt for pain.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:34Bill Maher?

  You know, painters, musicians, I mean, would Eric Clapton have written "Layla" if Patty Harrison hadn't left him?

• 51:43Speaker 03

  No. We all, Patty, when's her parade? Where's her Rock the Hall? Rock, Rock the Hall.

• 51:50Bill Maher?

  You kids who don't know what I'm talking about, look it up in your book with when Eric Clapton.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  Met Patty.

• 51:58Bill Maher?

  Well, it was George Harrison's wife. So it was pretty, pretty interesting that, that little, they should make a movie about that.

• 52:05Speaker 03

  I know, that would be a good one.

• 52:06Bill Maher?

  Fuck.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:07Bill Maher?

  Hollywood, you laymos.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  They'd all be fighting to play him.

• 52:10Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  And her.

• 52:11Bill Maher?

  What a great story.

• 52:13Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 52:14Bill Maher?

  What are they waiting for? I bet you they do it now and they'll give me nothing.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  Nothing, not a goddamn thing.

• 52:19Bill Maher?

  For thinking of it.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  Nothing but a screener and a gift bag.

• 52:21Bill Maher?

  So what are your days like now?

• 52:23Speaker 03

  My days are tricky because I am in this weird position of having to fill my days, which is very odd because my whole life was.

• 52:31Bill Maher?

  Film your day.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Fill.

• 52:33Bill Maher?

  Oh, fill.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  That was my old gig, filming every goddamn day.

• 52:37Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Um, so I will say this. I have been in a lot of legal battles for the last six years. So I still have two active suits. I've been sued by MAGA folks, everything from other families. Remember MAGA hat kid, that kid Nick Sandman? He went to a school called Covington High School.

• 52:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I remember that with the Indian.

• 52:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. And so, um, I know, I was gonna stop you and say indigenous person, but I get it. Anyway, Nathan Phillips is a name. And so 12 other families from that school sued me for defamation about tweeting about that incident in federal court in Kentucky, Eastern District of Kentucky and state court. So I had to send my very happy attorneys, because they work a lot, to Covington, Kentucky to fight that one. And one of those is, um, those are still gone. There's another guy in Franklin, Tennessee, very newsworthy this week. And he's a guy who was harassing a trans kid at a prom. It was on video. A day after it was all over TikTok, I commented on it.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  That guy is suing me, saying he got fired because of my comments as opposed to his behavior.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  And there was a guy next door to me, who lived next door to me. We had to move. He was a big MAGA guy and would go in his yard and I, there was, you know, my Ring camera would, would catch him, my Nest camera. And he'd be like, "You fucking cunt. Donald Trump put the heat on you. Now it's war, you bitch." And that was my next door neighbor.

• 54:05Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so that guy sued me for three years and he sued my husband, just to be a dick, because I sent that tape to the Huffington Post and I said, "If I show up dead, who's gonna expect the CEO of KP Holmes?" Like, it's so random. Like, no, it wasn't Brooke Shields.

• 54:23Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  It wasn't Anderson Cooper. It turns out it was the CEO of KP Holmes. And that guy sued us for a year after we even moved. Like, so I found these folks are like very litigious, obviously. They appeal everything. And each one of these cases, and I've had five, they tie me up for about three years.

• 54:43Bill Maher?

  God, I don't know. I can't even, just the, the place this country has descended to, the pettiness, the hatred, it just, and it's really unfair that you are, at the moment, the object of so much of this scorn. But all I can tell you is, man, you're a warrior.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  I'm telling you, getting back on stage is gonna be huge. I just know it.

• 55:08Bill Maher?

  It will end and it will serve as a kind of a trampoline to, I think, boost you into higher stratospheres, you know?

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Oh, I'd be grateful just to work. Honestly, I just wanna work. You know what I mean? It's like.

• 55:22Bill Maher?

  And you should.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just wanna work.

• 55:24Bill Maher?

  And, and like.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  I'm happy on the D list. I'm on a very nice, comfortable list I've had carved out for myself, you know?

• 55:30Bill Maher?

  Exactly. With a very loyal fanbase.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:33Bill Maher?

  A loyal, sizable fanbase.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:36Bill Maher?

  So what are you doing to prepare for the, what you're, say, June, you're at the Mirage?

• 55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:42Bill Maher?

  Are you working out? I mean, you must.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  I'm working out this time, which I've never done in my whole career. I'm working with a writer. I have never worked with a writer. So I've been bouncing stuff off her, but I actually, you're gonna laugh. My agent used to be at ICM, so I'm now at CAA. If I have many, too many, you know, enemies over there. But, um, anyway, so I feel like I'm back with my standup agent that I was with until six years ago. And we always had a really great relationship and he just always kept me gigging and stuff. And so he actually said, "I think you should actually write a show with somebody helping you."

• 56:18Bill Maher?

  But then, I mean, do you go to the clubs and work at?

• 56:21Speaker 03

  I would, believe it or not, I'd rather do like really small theaters, like theater spaces. So instead of doing a club like a Largo or like, uh, there's, you know, some little spaces, sometimes you can do the school.

• 56:33Bill Maher?

  A lot of it is new. You gotta.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Sometimes a school will let you do it. So I can go, yeah. Like John Cleese did that. He went and did a bunch of his stuff at University of Santa Barbara. So now that I live in Malibu, that's like an easy drive for me. And they might be willing to let me like work out my stuff with their students.

• 56:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  Which would be awesome. Because that's a great, it doesn't burn the LA market.

• 56:52Bill Maher?

  So and you'll have time to do that before June?

• 56:55Speaker 03

  No, Vegas is not gonna be the Kathy Griffin show. The last six years have been difficult. Vegas is just gonna be Harry and Meghan.

• 57:04Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 03

  Kardashians.

• 57:05Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  You know, I had a dinner party for Stormy. Stormy came over at Daniel's. So like, that's, my gays wanna hear about Stormy.

• 57:12Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  They wanna make sure she's okay. They want, they wanna check in with her.

• 57:16Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  You know, like living in Malibu.

• 57:18Bill Maher?

  No, and you should never, never not do that.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:21Bill Maher?

  I mean, you, you could mix in, I think it's a great mix for a show.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:25Bill Maher?

  To have some of it be about your personal life and the, but yeah, we, yeah, you gotta play the hit.

• 57:30Speaker 03

  You still wanna hear about what had happened when I went on vacation with Sia. Because it was just funny. But I will, like, I'll talk about cancer because I have to acknowledge my voice sounding different. So I'll do like boom, boom, three quickfire cancer jokes. I also like, uh, you know, tried to take my life. So I went to like a 51/50 cycle. So that was like intense and not, I can, I should say not normal for comedians. I'm not the first comedian, that's for sure. But that was something that has to be finessed. So I might have like three jokes for that in Vegas, but I could get into that stuff more with like the more written show. So for now, it's like, let's get 90 minutes of just trying to make these people laugh.

• 58:08Bill Maher?

  You will.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  About all the Vegas craziness, about all the pop culture craziness.

• 58:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, there's so much now.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:13Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:14Bill Maher?

  All right. Well, I hope I get to see it soon.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  I hope so, my dear.

• 58:17Bill Maher?

  And, uh, you know, you call me.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  All right.

• 58:20Bill Maher?

  All right. Great to see you.

• 58:22Speaker 03

  Come here.

• 58:29Speaker 03

  I have such a good chunk about Malibu. Mel Gibson's in the neighborhood. Gary Busey got caught whacking off again like two months ago in a park. What?

• 58:37Bill Maher?

  Gary Busey?

• 58:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:38Bill Maher?

  I did DC Cam with him. What?

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Nick Nolte. Go, he goes to the market looking like that mugshot. I'm not even kidding.

• 58:49Speaker 00

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