Turns out there was even more to Bill Maher’s twisty road to the Mark Twain Prize than we knew.
Maher was first informed he’d receive the prize months before it was publicly reported—and Donald Trump personally approved his selection, even as he publicly denounced the Real Time host.
That’s according to a New York Times profile of Maher published Monday—the same day Maher’s ceremony premiered on Netflix. In the piece, writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis reports that Maher was told in January that he would receive the honor, two months before The Atlantic first broke the news publicly and the White House denounced it as “fake news.”
When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Maher “will NOT be getting this award,” Maher says he thought that was that.
“Trump gets what he wants,” Maher told the Times. But after the Kennedy Center confirmed the selection, he said he was as confused as anyone: “It’s very unclear who’s in charge.”
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told the Times that the Mark Twain Prize is a collaboration between Netflix and the Kennedy Center, adding that in the years Netflix has streamed the ceremony, the prize has gone to the streamer’s preferred candidate. But that did not make the Kennedy Center incidental: Sarandos said Trump, in his role as Kennedy Center chairman, could have blocked Maher’s selection—but personally approved it instead.
“There was never a moment—and I talked to him a few times about this—when he wasn’t in support of Bill being the honoree,” Sarandos said of Trump, adding that he believes the president “respects the back and forth” between the two men.
The White House did not comment to the Times. A Kennedy Center representative declined to discuss the selection process in detail, saying only that “incomplete details were prematurely shared with [The Atlantic] while discussions were still ongoing.”
When Maher was officially announced in March, the reversal already seemed to fit the complicated Trump-Maher dynamic. Maher has spent years mocking Trump, while Trump has repeatedly insulted him in return.
That sniping continued in the lead-up to the ceremony. In May, Trump called Maher “weak and ineffective” on social media. In June, after Trump referred to him as “low ratings Bill Maher,” Maher fired back, pointing to the president’s own 35% approval rating.
On stage at the Kennedy Center, Maher leaned into the feud, saying Trump often calls him part of the “lunatic left,” and responding that while such a faction exists, “I’m just not part of it.”
Maher also framed ridicule as the price of public ridiculousness.
“You want to not get mocked? Stop being funny,” Maher said during his acceptance speech. “Then the jokes won’t work.”
Maher’s ceremony, which features tributes to the HBO host from Jay Leno, Whitney Cummings, Woody Harrelson, Louis C.K., Stephen A. Smith, Arianna Huffington, and John Mellencamp, is now streaming on Netflix.
There’s was no way for Bunghole Bill Maher to win that award on his own ‘merits!’ Only someone like Drumpf would give his ‘blessings’ for Bunghole Bill to get his grubby little hands on one!
Because Bunghole Bill Maher stop being funny a long, long time ago!
Jews are now pro Trump. Really weird huh?
You’re just a humorless bigot who thinks their shit don’t stink, when, in reality, you reek child!
If it’s all fake, then where did that very real cock up your ass come from?
You didn’t deny you’re pro Trump either.
We all know why.
Nobody likes you posting your bigoted homophobic shit here! Are you finally gonna get a fucking clue and grow the fuck up, or NAAAA?!!
Go back to licking your lord and master Drumpf’s dirty ass already, child!
You stalk ALL my comments and make no other comments anywhere else.
You badly want my attention and approval and hate that I give you nothing but an occasional explainer like this. Your life is so miserable.
Cry harder for me, Zero! I don’t give a fuck for you! It’s my rightful honor and privilege of putting you in your fucking place, every time you post your bigoted, hate fueled shit here! I’m not asking for your attention, boi! I’m just rightfully bitchslapping you, because you fucking deserve to be!
What a fucking loser you are! Thinking that you’re something special, when, in reality, nobody likes you! Not even your own mommy, who’s getting fed up with you using her computer, and not going out and getting a job! How be you make something of yourself, instead of behaving like the parasite that you are, twiggy, hmmmm?
This is what it does in between victims.
Skullfucking little boys is another reason nobody likes you and doesn’t want anything to do with you, Zero!
You are the lamest, most pathetic excuse of a being I’ve ever come across! I’d ask if you even feel shame, except you don’t even know what that word means! Because you’re as smart as your hero Drumpf, twig boi!
All this sick animal has to do is stop commenting on my posts and it will stop.
Thinking it’ll get me to stop responding to its hate fuelled posts that have nothing to do with the subject at hand! LOL!!!
Not happening, Zero! No one believes a word that comes from your racist, hate filled head! You can’t rattle me with your accusations against me, because it’s a lie! All because you want to keep posting your bigoted shit without any pushback!
No, you little boy raper, hoping nobody notices your crimes! I’m not stopping going after you! It will be my right and privilege to keep attacking you, everytime you post your ignorant shit here! And I can and will do it, because you don’t like it! You keep accusing me of raping children, I will continue to call you a projecting pedophile!
Want it to stop? Then grow the fuck up, bitch hole!
Understand?
You rape little boys.
You should be tried and executed.
Still trying to accuse me of pedophilia, that you admitted you were doing to try and get me to back off of commenting to you, telling you what a fucked up miserable loser you are!
Not working, Zero! You’re too fucking stupid to try and challenge and threaten me! You WILL be bitchslapped with every ignorant post you make!
You gonna learn, filth!😈😈😈😈😈
“respects the back and forth”
That turd respects absolutely nothing but gold. Cheap looking tacky plated doodads from Hobby Lobby
Drumpf or Bunghole Bill? Because both are acceptable!