Bill Maher has a message for the world: “You’re welcome.”
HBO’s “Real Time” host told the New York Times that Milo Yiannopoulos’ recent controversial appearance on his show resulted in the right-wing provocateur’s downfall.
“By the end of the weekend, by dinnertime Monday, he’s dropped as a speaker at CPAC. Then he’s dropped by Breitbart, and his book deal falls through. As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Maher told the Times about Yiannopoulos, who has had a string of career setbacks since appearing on “Real Time” after comments he made regarding pedophilia surfaced.
Maher called the former Breitbart editor “an emotionally needy Ann Coulter wannabe” who is “trying to make a buck off of the left’s propensity for outrage.” He however stressed, “I wasn’t trying to get him removed from society.”
Yiannopoulos resigned from Breitbart on Tuesday, minutes before he addressed recent pedophilia comments he made that sparked outrage across the nation. He was a guest on Maher’s HBO show last week.
Before Yiannopoulos appeared, “Real Time” courted backlash for booking the former Breitbart editor. Mayer faced subsequent criticism for his perceived easy treatment of Yiannopoulos on the show.
“It’s not my job to hold him accountable to everything he’s ever said or done,”Maher told the Times. “I had eight minutes with him, on the show itself. Sorry I don’t have time to go over everything everybody else would want to do. We just had time to, sort of, start a discussion of the broad view of who he is. I don’t think he frankly knows what he’s going to say half the time, or knows what his philosophy is.”
He continued: “But to see him as this monster is a little crazy. You know what he is? He’s the little impish, bratty kid brother. And the liberals are his older teenager sisters who are having a sleepover and he puts a spider in their sleeping bag so he can watch them scream.”
On Sunday, a video surfaced in which Yiannopoulos said some relationships between adults and 13-year-olds are consensual. The outspoken Donald Trump supporter, who’s gay, also joked that being molested had made him good at oral sex.
“I am horrified by pedophilia,” Yiannopoulos said during a press conference on Tuesday. “I do not support child abuse.”
Yiannopoulos’ comments have resulted in being uninvited to speak at CPAC, Simon & Schuster canceling his book deal and stepping down as the Breitbart tech editor.