Bill Maher Flames ‘Liberal’ Late-Night Hosts: ‘Not What I Do’

Bill Maher is just fine with not the be in the “fraternity” of late-night hosts who lean left, he said in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Noting that he “knows and loves” Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon but others (like the more openly political Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers) he doesn’t “know at all,” the host of HBO’s Real Time told the magazine that when he was launching his previous talk show Politically Incorrect on ABC, he was told, “You can’t do a show where you have political opinions because the audience will turn off to that.”

“Johnny Carson always played it down the middle. You didn’t even know who he voted for. Same with Letterman and Leno. That was the template. Now, it’s completely the opposite. The politics come first on those shows.” Maher said the hosts “echo what [their liberal audiences] already want to believe and do believe.”

“That’s not what I do, and I’m not going to do that,” he continued, “I’m going to talk to both sides and criticize both sides.”

Maher also called out celebrities who won’t do his show because “Their publicists always say they’re afraid that they’re going to look stupid.” He excluded Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington, both of whom have been guests on his show.

“They might [look stupid],” Maher continued, “I mean, that’s just not their area, I get it. And also, show people, they just perceive truth, shall we say, differently. Artists, and I love artists and I am an artist in my own way, perceive truth emotionally and I perceive it rationally. I think that’s the most diplomatic way to say it.”

Maher was adamant that he enjoys being an island of sorts when it comes to other left-leaning late night hosts and celebrities—even those he’s “lost friends.”

“I’m in a very different category, kind of my own category,” Maher said. “Am I an A-lister? No, I’m not Nicole Kidman or Timothée Chalamet, but I’m not really a B-lister either. I’m in this world that has one foot is in politics, and you have to be smart to watch my show and to be on it.”