Bill Maher is never shy about oversharing, but even by his standards, this one’s… vivid. While chatting with Cheryl Hines, the comedian confirmed a long-circulating rumor that he sometimes, uh, took care of business before taping episodes of Politically Incorrect for the TV schedule back in the ’90s. The story, which popped up in gossip items decades ago, was not a smear campaign. The longtime TV host says it happened, and he even remembers the brand name that accidentally gave him away.
Maher’s confession came on a new episode of his Club Random podcast, released on YouTube, where he and Hines meandered from politics to press lore to on-set rituals. When Hines asked why tabloids would say that he masturbated on set, the comedian shrugged and responded bluntly:
Because I did. [laughing]
From there, the HBO veteran explained the context: Politically Incorrect taped multiple days a week, he was “a wild person then,” often short on sleep, and occasionally needed a nap to level out before showtime with one specific pre-nap routine that, in his telling, did the trick. He continued:
Not often… This is the ’90s. We taped every day, or three days a week… I’d be out late — drinking and clubbing and whatever. And sometimes I was [tired]. So, like, I could always get a nap if I jerked off first. And I think one time I forgot to remove the Jergens from the toilet area.
Hines, ever the quick straight-man, noted that at least he kept it to the bathroom. Maher, unsurprisingly, couldn’t resist a Bill Clinton joke on the back end. He added:
[Laughing] That’s what I said to Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. You did it reasonably.
The late-night mainstay also swatted down the weirder embellishments that attached themselves to the rumor over the years — namely, that there was a sock involved. Those flourishes, he said, were just writers gilding an already salacious lily. He finished up, saying:
They just made up… they are writers and they just made that up, embellishment, right? ‘It was a sock,’ right? And I ‘was thinking about Putin,’ because that’s what they do. Writers embellish.
If you’ve followed Bill Maher’s career, the admission tracks with a persona built on abrasive candor — the same one that powered Politically Incorrect through culture-war minefields and now fuels Club Random’s anything-goes vibe. It’s also very the political humorist to puncture tabloid myth with a confession that’s both matter-of-fact and designed to make headlines. Mission accomplished, Bill.
And while the story is sticky by design, there’s a telling subtext: the grind of daily (or near-daily) TV, the performative energy it demands, and the odd, sometimes messy, rituals people adopt to meet that demand. Trust the no-filter funnyman to pick the messiest possible version, name-check a drugstore lotion, and laugh about leaving it in plain sight.
For anyone wondering whether this is a retroactive bit, the source is as direct as it gets. According to the pundit-comic, before the cameras rolled, he had to relieve a little tension, and it was impossible to keep it a secret, because that dang Jergens bottle was the smoking gun.
When Bill Maher isn’t oversharing, he hosts Real Time With Bill Maher, which airs Friday nights before becoming available to stream with an HBO Max subscription.
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