Bill Maher Is Getting Sued for This Joke
Professional provocateur Bill Maher lives to irritate people on Real Time — liberals, conservatives, college professors, gun nuts, you name it. But now one of the targets of his jokes has decided to do something about the perceived slight: One-time Trump inner-circle member Laura Loomer.
An attorney for Loomer filed suit against HBO and Maher over remarks he made on the September 13th episode of Real Time. The offending words? Maher speculated that Loomer could be “in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she’s very close to Trump. She’s 31, looks like his type.”
Maher wasn’t done. “We did an editorial here a few years ago,” he said. “It was basically, who’s Trump fucking? Because I said, you know, it’s not nobody. He’s been a dog for too long, and it’s not Melania. I think we may have our answer this week. I think it might be Laura Loomer.”
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Now Loomer wants more than $150 million in damages, calling the offending comments “false, malicious and defamatory.” Her lawsuit also claims that the remarks are “reasonably understood by any reasonable viewer as Defendant Maher making a factual statement of objectively verifiable fact of and concerning Ms. Loomer.”
“We may have our answer” and “I think it might be” don’t seem to be words people use when communicating an “objectively verifiable fact,” but that’s for a court to decide, not Cracked. The lawsuit alleges that Maher’s insinuations about Loomer’s relationship with Trump were fabricated “for attention, notoriety, ‘clicks’ and profit for himself and Defendant HBO, his employer.”
What kind of profit could Maher possibly make with his Laura Loomer jokes? At least $150 million worth, we can assume from the potential damages.
Maher’s not commenting for now, but the funny thing is, he’s delivered much meaner burns about Loomer on Real Time. On that same episode, he devoted a “24 Things You Don’t Know About” segment to “the new groupie in Trump’s circle,” including these joke-facts about his accuser:
- Her spirit animal was eaten by Haitians.
- Her biggest fear is immigrants taking her job as a right-wing hatemonger.
- People think she’s all in on Trump, but some of the voices in her head like Jill Stein.
- She believes Michael Jackson faked the moonwalking.
- Her hobby is refurbishing vintage lawn jockeys.
On second thought, none of the fake-facts are as insulting as the suggestion that she had a sexual relationship with Trump.
Maher is likely used to all of this. Trump himself filed a lawsuit against Maher in 2013, according to Deadline. That was over a joke Maher made on The Tonight Show, promising to donate $5 million to charity if Trump could prove he wasn’t the offspring of an orangutan. Trump later withdrew the suit because, I’m guessing, he misplaced his birth certificate.