Tantruming Bill Maher Wishes Everyone Else Would Lighten Up

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What a Friday for Bill Maher. Part of it was spent wagging his finger at America’s youth for being obsessed with their mental health. After all, he argues, things are pretty good! Unemployment is low, weed is legal, and there’s porn on your phone. Sure, inflation sucks but you can get a cool TV for like sixty bucks. So “cheer the fuck up!”

It’s another New Rule in the endless litany of Maher’s rules for living like Bill Maher: Stop sweating the small stuff, people. And stop self-diagnosing your mood disorders, he scolds. While statistics show anti-depressant use among young males is rapidly rising (unlike their dicks, he jokes like a guy who knows), it’s not because they’re actually depressed. In fact, three in four people on antidepressants haven’t been diagnosed with depression, he says, throwing up a New York Times graphic in case you don’t believe him. 

“They just want a magic pill,” Maher claims. “We spend $6 billion dollar a year on drug ads all featuring someone emerging from darkness to play with a dog.” And don’t get him started with that “being on the spectrum business.” That’s just a hall pass for being a jerk. Besides, everyone’s on the spectrum, he says — that’s why they call it a spectrum.

Bottom line? Everyone has bad days so stop acting as if your problems are different than anyone else’s. Stop overreacting. Quit making mountains out of molehills.

The person who could benefit most from this advice, unsurprisingly, is Bill Maher. The other part of his Friday, the part that wasn’t aired on Real Time, was spent firing his longtime agents at CAA. Did they blow a big contract negotiation with HBO? (Actually, his show just got a lucrative renewal for two more years, thanks to the work of those canned reprentatives.) Did the agents fail to generate publicity for his latest diatribe? Nope — Maher canned his long-time partners because he didn’t get invited to an Oscars party for A-listers.

I’m not sure who makes up the A-list these days, but depressed Americans can all agree that grumpy Maher isn’t on it. Was he ever on it? No matter. According to an exclusive in The Hollywood Reporter, “Maher, according to sources, was furious that he was snubbed for the event.” His message was clear — if Kamala Harris gets an invite, then the aging comic damn well better get one too.

Hey, everyone has bad days, says Bill Maher. Some people take a pill. Others, like Maher, throw public temper tantrums while telling everyone else to cheer the fuck up. Whatever it takes to get you out of the darkness, Bill.