As much as comedian, writer,  political commentator, actor, and television host Bill Maher is admired for his forthright views, he has also made some major missteps that both annoyed and confused his fans. Known for his HBO political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher (2003–present) and the similar late-night show called Politically Incorrect (1993–2002) where he didnt hide his left leaning views.

But often his controversial views did a great deal of  harm and resulting in major backlash.  Like six days after 9/11 he commented on air that he rejected the idea athat the terrorists on the planes were cowards.  It ended up with ABC TV not renewing his contract .

Then in 2016 he  allowed an Australian doctor currently practicing in Mexico  to air his claims to have successfully treated HIV-positive actor Charlie Sheen through a goat-milk derived alternative therapy. He went  completely unchallenged by Maher.

“People are going to attack me just for having you on,” Maher said during the one-on-one interview with Samir Chachoua.  And indeed they so rightly did.  Peter Staley, a major AIDS and gay rights activist later  commented, “This is the last thing AIDS activists need to be dealing with right now. But we’ll have to, because I know for sure that some folks will end up dead because of all this. This is a form of AIDS denialism, and it just had its big HBO premiere.”

In May 2022 Maher referred  to puberty blockers and other transgender health care for trans youth as “literally experimenting on children”.  This time GLAAD criticized Maher for these statements and referred to him as transphobic, citing articles from organizations such as the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics that state gender-affirming care is medically appropriate.

However last year Maher launched Club Random Podcasts built he said on an idea of “freedom of expression.”  One of his guests was Harvey Levin the openly gay boss of TMZ, who talked about losing a partner to AIDS in the middle of pandemic.  It was a story he had never shared publicly before and it bought me close to tears listening to his pain.  There is a lovely twist to his tale, which I eill not give away here, but after it you know exactly why our community loves Cher so very much.

As to Maher, well the jury is still out on that