Don’t Forget That Bill Maher Mocked Steve Irwin Right After His Death
After the shocking murder of far-right political activist Charlie Kirk last week, centrist comedian Bill Maher shamed some Twitter users for making light of Kirk’s demise in the days following the attack instead of simply waiting to turn the slaying into a Halloween costume.
Maher began this past Friday night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher by noting that it had been a “very ugly week in America with violence of all kinds: political violence, regular violence, a lot of people talking about a civil war.” Maher then snarked off Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s call-to-prayer on the House floor as well as the irate reaction of some Democratic representatives, saying, “so far, the civil war is not very civil.” But, most of all, Maher’s disapproval went toward the outpouring of too-soon memes and punchlines made by Kirk’s detractors in the hours and days following his violent death as the comedian called out “the people who mocked his death” and told them, “I think you’re gross. I have no use for you.”
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Almost immediately, fans of the late, great Steve Irwin reminded Maher that, when the beloved conservationist and educational television star died after being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb in September 2006, Maher mocked Irwin’s death with a graphic Halloween costume the following month:
Not only did Maher refuse to apologize for mocking Irwin’s death, but the former PETA board member and self-proclaimed animal rights activist even went so far as to blame Irwin for his own demise, condescendingly snarking, “People who really love animals understand that, if you get killed by one, chances are, you were doing something to it you shouldn’t have been.”
Claiming moral superiority over a man who spent his entire life protecting wildlife and who literally died while advocating for conservation is, unfortunately, par for the course for both Maher and PETA.
When Irwin’s fans on Twitter called out Maher’s hypocrisy, the centrist demagogue’s “defenders” swiftly flooded in to the replies to explain why the comparison between mocking Kirk’s murder and dressing up as a dead Irwin isn’t an appropriate one. Wrote one such fan, “This isn't fair, Steve Irwin was a popular culture figure with no explicit political associations, while Charlie Kirk was a neo Nazi and is thereby sacred to millions of Amerikkkans.”
“The difference here being obviously that he wasn’t friends with Steve Irwin,” another Twitter user added.
One more user lamented, “I wish I could liberate myself from any fear or embarrassment of hypocrisy like these people do.”
Presumably, the thought never occurred to Maher that he may not have the moral high ground on the issue of too-soon jokes about real people dying — now, he’s going to have to explain to his latest girlfriend who the Crocodile Hunter was.
