Jack Whitehall | Club Random with Bill Maher

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher — Jack Whitehall | July 20, 2026

Episode Overview

In this lively and sprawling episode, British comedian Jack Whitehall joins Bill Maher at Club Random for a quintessential Club Random hang: an unfiltered, meandering conversation steeped in comedy, personal anecdotes, pop culture critiques, and a healthy serving of mutual ribbing. Maher pulls the discussion from British boarding schools and American weed shops to stand-up cancel culture, the difficulty of navigating politically correct media, and generational shifts in relationships and technology. True to Club Random form, politics gets a cursory nod but the real focus is shared laughs and honest talk about fame, family, and the hazards of comedy in the age of the internet.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Britishness, Marriage, and Man Caves (03:11–04:03)

• Jack Whitehall opens up about losing his bachelor space after recently getting married, lamenting the way his things are being slowly ousted from their shared London flat.
• Maher jokes about the fairy tale of attracting a partner with similar interests and "living happily ever after" through romcom logic.

Notable quote:

"I've been married two months... So I lose all of my spaces. I gradually see things of mine sort of taken down from the walls and put away in cupboards."
— Jack Whitehall (03:27)

2. World Cup and the Cultural Gap in Football/Soccer (04:14–06:07)

• Whitehall relays his strategic motivation for doing a show for Fox—access to World Cup matches in the US.
• Maher expresses confusion about soccer's appeal, joking about its slow pace compared to American sports.

Notable quote:

"I don't get sports where, I mean, there's more scoring at a Star Trek convention."
— Bill Maher (04:31)

3. American Sports Fandom vs. British Hysteria (05:13–06:07)

• Whitehall shares how subdued American fans are when their team loses, contrasting it with intense British reactions involving “chucking furniture through the window.”

4. The Politics of Red Cards & Trump-FIFA Gags (06:07–10:11)

• Whitehall breaks down the recent World Cup 'red card' scandal for Maher, who confesses to total ignorance of soccer rules.
• Both riff on Trump’s tendency to "take credit" for behind-the-scenes deals, even when subtlety would be preferable.

Notable quote:

"If he had just shut up... We'll get the signature on the paper. No, like a dog."
— Bill Maher (09:15)

5. Beatles Fandom and Old School British Education (14:20–15:49, 67:53–69:17)

• Discussion of attending schools with famous alumni (James Mason, Kate Middleton), and the oddity of being the "dirty secret" alumnus for being a comedian.
• Maher and Whitehall celebrate the endurance of The Beatles, Whitehall shares the moment he spotted Paul and Ringo dining together in LA.

Notable quote:

"My school would always talk about James Mason... Whenever they write about it in the newspapers, it's Kate Middleton, James Mason, and then I'm the dirty secret."
— Jack Whitehall (14:02)

6. Cancel Culture, Shock Comedy, and Surviving Scandal (33:05–41:15)

• Both swap stories of stirring up media outrage—the hysteria over mild jokes about the Queen, and the hair-trigger British tabloids.
• Whitehall tells a hair-raising backstage story: narrowly avoiding the airing of a Michael Jackson pedophile sketch on the night of Jackson’s death.

Notable quote:

"And then the show goes out at 11. And I'm like, fuck. I called the producer of the show. I was like, we need to do something..."
— Jack Whitehall (42:40)

7. Navigating Political Correctness and Internet Mob Mentality (48:33–51:40)

• Maher and Whitehall muse on the modern outrage cycle—how scandals dominate for 24–48 hours before attention is quickly diverted elsewhere.

Notable quote:

"You can drive the sheep to a new pasture. It's easy. They're sheep, Jack."
— Bill Maher (39:08)

8. Love, Relationships, and The Golden Bachelor (52:53–55:28)

• Maher argues for a more honest, less “appropriate” version of shows like The Golden Bachelor, highlighting the prevalence of age-gap relationships and double standards in society.
• Whitehall jokes about marrying younger, noting his parents' 20-year age gap.

9. Boarding Schools, Puberty, and Socialization (68:15–71:02)

• Whitehall offers a candid (and hilarious) window into British boarding school life: fraternal, communal, and punctuated by endless adolescent masturbation.
• Maher reflects on the significance of having private space for such teen rites of passage.

Notable quote:

"It was just normal to hear a cacophony—a cacophony of frapping."
— Jack Whitehall (69:48)

10. Comedy, Gender, and Intuition (71:34–73:37)

• Winding down, they consider the differences between men and women, especially the often-lauded "women's intuition."
• Maher and Whitehall agree that having a smarter partner is invaluable, even if it means sometimes being hopelessly lost during movie plots.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• Baby Hitler and TV Shock Comedy:
  "He was like, I just think that's funny. A baby dressed as Hitler... With a mustache."
  — Jack Whitehall (40:06)

• Cancel Panic:
  "[My publisher] said, you just need to pray that someone dies this week."
  — Jack Whitehall (38:52)

• All About The Queen:
  "I made a joke about our monarch enjoying anal sex."
  — Jack Whitehall (35:17)

• On Getting Older in Comedy:
  "If you said to me when I was your age, at 70, you'll be laughing your ass off, having a great time, getting high... I'd just be okay. I'll take that."
  — Bill Maher (27:41)

• On Cancel Culture's Lingering Effects:
  "Cancel Culture is right now, like, Covid. The worst of it is over, but it will always be with us."
  — Bill Maher (48:26)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [03:11–04:03] — Newlywed life, man cave woes
• [04:14–06:07] — World Cup, soccer fandom, cultural differences
• [06:07–10:11] — Trump, FIFA, and the spectacle of taking credit
• [14:20–15:49] — British schools, alumni, the Beatles
• [33:05–41:15] — Cancel culture, media frenzies, and shock comedy near-misses
• [42:40–44:13] — Michael Jackson jokes, timing, and comedic boundaries
• [48:33–51:40] — Online outrage cycles, Daily Mail and Love Island
• [52:53–55:28] — Golden Bachelor, age gaps, love in old age
• [68:15–71:02] — Boarding school puberty and socialization
• [71:34–73:37] — Gender roles, intuition, movie-watching habits

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Style, Tone, and Chemistry

The conversation is loose, irreverent, and decidedly unscripted, with Whitehall and Maher sharing a natural rapport. Both comedians delight in detailing the weirdness of their respective cultures (and workplaces), reminiscing about the "old days" while skewering modern media sensitivities and the paradoxes of fame. The tone is self-deprecating but thoughtful, with cheeky British sarcasm from Whitehall balancing Maher’s wry American cynicism.

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Takeaways

• Comedy is risk: Both Maher and Whitehall agree that pushing boundaries will always court controversy, but losing your sense of humor is a worse fate.
• The outrage cycle is fleeting: Scandals that seem world-ending often evaporate with the next news item.
• Culture gap: British and American fame, humor, and scandal play out very differently, but everyone chases (and fears) online backlash.
• Aging doesn’t mean stopping: Whether it’s Maher getting high at 70 or Whitehall embracing newlywed life, both see humor and adventure in every stage.
• Authenticity trumps appeasement: "Good things are good," Maher declares (31:48), encapsulating the episode’s embrace of unapologetic joy and honesty despite (and sometimes because of) risk.

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This episode is a masterclass in candid comedic conversation, brimming with laughs, real talk, and the occasional moment of revelation about British schools, American fame, and what it really means to "break America."

Transcript

[Bill Maher]

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[Bill Maher]

every Home well folks, if you're gonna spend money on something, it might as well be something you actually like. That's what I always say. That's where the Club Random merch store comes in. That's right. Get yourself a cozy hoodie. Look at this. This is really well designed. That's right. Get yourself a cozy hoodie to snuggle away your sorrows. Or some new Club Random shirts. Look at all this shit. I have to attract a partner with similar interests and live happily ever after. I've seen crazier rom coms, so head over to clubrandom.com and bring home some

[Jack Whitehall]

Random it's the night that he's died and the show goes out at 11. I called the producer of the show. I was like, we need to do something.

[Bill Maher]

Can I ask what the joke was?

[Jack Whitehall]

Club Random I want a baby dressed as Hitler. We're like, what?

[Bill Maher]

With the mustache?

[Jack Whitehall]

With a mustache.

[Bill Maher]

You put a mustache on a baby,

[Jack Whitehall]

mustache on a baby. Club Random Hey. Hey, how's it going?

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you're casing the joint I said, yeah, just casing. When are you gonna rob it?

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Later.

[Jack Whitehall]

I've got a couple of items I'd

[Bill Maher]

like a little suspicious when someone's like walking around just checking what's fitted to. There's a lot of cool stuff, isn't

[Jack Whitehall]

it some very cool stuff in here?

[Bill Maher]

I know. I was at the beach yesterday. Venice. Do you know what Venice Boulevard is here?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

It's like all these crazy, you know, it's like. It's just that we. You ride bikes on it. It's great. And it's just all kind of, you know, hippies and people playing guitar on the, you know, and selling crystals and, you know, booths and there's some vintage shops and I got a vintage mask that is going to look great in here.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

30 bucks.

[Jack Whitehall]

30 bucks.

[Bill Maher]

There's nothing like finding something you could never find anywhere else and you love it and it's just not in department stores.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah. I need, I need a space like this in my home. I feel like I don't have a man cave. I live in London.

[Bill Maher]

London.

[Jack Whitehall]

But I, you know, I. It was bought as a sort of bachelor pad and then I got married and now I live there with my wife and child and I'm sorry, I lose all of my spaces. I gradually see things of mine sort of taken down from the walls and put away in cupboards.

[Bill Maher]

How long have you been married?

[Jack Whitehall]

I've been married two months.

[Bill Maher]

Two months. You're in Newlywed.

[Jack Whitehall]

Newlywed, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Wow. And they said it wouldn't last.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. We're celebrating our two month anniversary.

[Bill Maher]

So you're in the honeymoon phase?

[Jack Whitehall]

I'm in the honeymoon phase.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Jack Whitehall]

So she loves that I've come over here to the United States without her to loosely do some press for a show, but actually just go to World cup soccer matches.

[Bill Maher]

Is that what you're doing? Yeah, of course. You're into soccer.

[Jack Whitehall]

I took a gamble. I did a show on Fox and knew that they were hosting the World cup and I could get access to all of these games and then I just needed England to get through to the knockout stages and it all worked out brilliant.

[Bill Maher]

I don't get sports where, I mean, there's more scoring. At a Star Trek convention.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. I mean, I watch it and I feel like it's. Compared to a lot of American sports is really frenetic and high octane.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, baseball, not a lot of scoring either. Yeah, yeah, no, but I guess just what you grow up with.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, but you boy. You guys are serious about it.

[Jack Whitehall]

So serious. I watched the American game where you guys got knocked out of the World cup, and it was a really weird experience being around American soccer fans knowing if it was in England and it was England being knocked out of the World cup, people would be suicidal. There'd be tears, there would be anger. And there was just a sort of resignation in this bar. And everyone was really quite like gracious about it. They were shaking hands with a Belgium guy that was in there and wishing him the best for the rest of the tournament. I'm like, if that was in England, people would be chucking furniture through the window and it would be, yeah, but

[Bill Maher]

you guys get violent. So violent. You know, a lot of people in this country. We just had our big 250.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Hope you're not upset about the.

[Jack Whitehall]

It's a little hard for us, but easier. Easier than it was, really.

[Bill Maher]

After 250 years, you're still pissed about. Still pissed off. What could have been.

[Jack Whitehall]

We'll take you back.

[Bill Maher]

You know what? 20 years ago I might have said, we'll go.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Maybe not.

[Bill Maher]

I don't know about now, bro. I don't know, your place seems kind of crazy. It really does. It seems like where we're going, not in a good way.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah. You know, but the job is like the one. The calling up the FIFA boss and the red card and the hysteria around that was fucking amazing.

[Bill Maher]

I'm so glad you brought this up. Please. I know soccer the way a woman who's not interested in baseball knows baseball. Not at all. So I saw this in the headline, and I mean headline. Yeah, yeah, Big story. I just didn't even start this. I don't know what red cards are.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I don't know what FIFA is.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Do me a solid, bro, and tell me this whole story from beginning to end and treat me like I'm a dumb chick.

[Jack Whitehall]

It was amazing. Cause it was this situation where your player gets sent off in the game. He gets the red card, which means he's.

[Bill Maher]

I don't know what that means.

[Jack Whitehall]

So he gets banned for the next game. So he's your best friend for what? He commits a foul and he gets eliminated from the game. But it also. One foul for one foul.

[Bill Maher]

See, in basketball you get six.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. And this foul was kind of. It was dubious. On a slow motion replay it looked kind of bad.

[Bill Maher]

But which guy is this on? What team?

[Jack Whitehall]

For the us he's on the US team and he scored a couple of goals. He's your best performing player. So he scores a goal in the game and then he gets sent off and it means he's going to miss the next crucial knockout game.

[Bill Maher]

So for one foul.

[Jack Whitehall]

For one foul? Yeah, for one foul, you get a one game suspension for foul play. It was kind of unfair and I think a lot of people watched it and they felt kind of sorry for this guy. He performed great in the tournament and then he's going to miss this crucial game and he gets the red card. And there's also a process whereby you can appeal a red card and you can appeal a decision like this. And it's quite rare, but on occasion the red card will be taken away. So there's definitely a world in which had Trump just called up FIFA and said, can we maybe, you know, have this red card removed and have this guy able to play in the next game?

[Bill Maher]

FIFA's the league.

[Jack Whitehall]

FIFA's the. Yeah, the governing body.

[Bill Maher]

What does it stand for?

[Jack Whitehall]

The Federation of International Football Association.

[Bill Maher]

Okay.

[Jack Whitehall]

Something.

[Bill Maher]

All right, you call it football.

[Jack Whitehall]

I could have just said anything and

[Bill Maher]

you would have gone, no, but that's right.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I get it.

[Bill Maher]

Football.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, football. And so there's a world in which it could have been accelerated. You know, people could have looked at that and gone, oh, yeah, that's legit. I mean, it's a little. It's a little suspicious and a little kind of unusual that it's happened that speedily and it's happened, you know, for the US Whilst the tournament is in the US but, okay, his red card's been taken away and he gets to play in the crucial knockout game. They definitely could have got away with it and it all would have just been like, you know, Internet speculation. He had to take credit for it. He couldn't help himself.

[Bill Maher]

He can't.

[Jack Whitehall]

That speech is amazing. And I watched it and I was like, just thinking about the head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino. He's clearly had the call from Trump be like, I'll do you a solid. Him watching that, just like, head in his hands. Of course, don't tell them.

[Bill Maher]

Just like everybody in the Trump administration, this is no different than the way he's handled the Iran war. Yeah, like so many times. They were having negotiations and both sides wanted to end this war. And if he had just shut up. And then he had to go, they surrendered like dogs. They surrendered like dogs. They're begging me for a deal. And they're like, oh, for fuck's sake, could you just shut up for five minutes? We'll get the signature on the paper. No, like a dog.

[Jack Whitehall]

It was so good. And you go. He starts the press conference. We're going. I know nothing about soccer. Football. We call it football. We call it soccer. I know nothing about it, but I know that wasn't a foul. It was never a foul. It's like suddenly getting into the technicalities of the.

[Bill Maher]

It's a really terrible trump impression. It's terrible. I mean, I. Almost anybody in America can do a bad drum. You English, you can't even do a bad drum.

[Jack Whitehall]

Can't even do a bad drum.

[Bill Maher]

Just because you're too English. It just doesn't come out.

[Jack Whitehall]

You can do James Mason. Do you know how when I do my James Mason, the improv nothing, kids go wild.

[Bill Maher]

It's like Michael Jackson in 1985 before the unpleasantness. Yeah. Just like when he. Remember when he dangled the baby off the balcony like that. I feel like that should have been a bit of a red card.

[Jack Whitehall]

Is that what you would call red card? It's certainly a yellow.

[Bill Maher]

At least we grow these here. Yeah, right over there.

[Jack Whitehall]

The woods.

[Bill Maher]

Well, that's my store. Yes, I've been to the woods. Oh, you have? Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Cause I'm friends with Woody.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, that's right.

[Jack Whitehall]

I'm buddies with Woody. I randomly became friends with Woody. Cause I met him at Glastonbury Festival.

[Bill Maher]

Okay.

[Jack Whitehall]

And then we bonded. And then when I was here, he's like, you gotta take your dad to the woods.

[Bill Maher]

He's a bonder.

[Jack Whitehall]

I took my 85 year old father

[Bill Maher]

to the woods and boy, does he bond with guys.

[Jack Whitehall]

He's the water Bonda.

[Bill Maher]

He just. I always kid him about it, but it's like there's always a new bromance in his life. Yeah, he thinks I'm jealous, but I'm not jealous. Just like it's amazing the way he's just a great guy. So like whoever works with him. I've been to parties with him. Yeah, it must have been his kind of part. He was throwing it because like you look around the room and it's like, oh, yeah, you did that movie together. Oh yeah, Farrelly, you did that movie together. Oh, Salma Hayek. You did that movie. Like everybody who's ever worked with him wants to be his pal. I don't blame him. I do too. And I never work with him except on a pot store, which loses money. No, we're going to try to fix it, but it's almost impossible to make a business work in California like that. I mean, just the state takes like 40%. Taxes.

[Jack Whitehall]

Fuck.

[Bill Maher]

You know, when I bought drugs from a skeezy dealer, he didn't skim 40%. I was a dealer. I did skim a little. Like, I would buy a pound, which is 16 ounces and make 17 ounces out of it. Okay, that's not 40%. But the government is worse than the dealer.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. You're forced to diversify into a gardening business and a tea room.

[Bill Maher]

And at least I know this is pure. This is pure, you know. I know it's no chemicals, you know, nothing like that. Just the soot from the fires that fall down on everything here. Would you ever live here? Could you see being one of the. Because we've certainly had a lot of British expats, you know, come over here and love the Southern California lifestyle.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I. I love the Southern California lifestyle for, like, a little bit. But then I do, I do. I kind of pine for home if I'm here for a period longer than three months.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. But I mean, many, you know, James Mason.

[Jack Whitehall]

I went to the same school as James Mason. Not at the same time, but he.

[Bill Maher]

No, I. Yeah, I don't think the kids remember. No, no, they don't. But he was so wonderfully English and the way he talked like this. Remember?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, my good boy.

[Jack Whitehall]

Very clipped. He. Yeah. Oh, he was one of the people that my school. My school would always talk about, James Mason having gone there and. And, you know, I hoped I'd grow up one day and I would be, you know, a revered former alumni.

[Bill Maher]

But you're an actor too, right?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I'm an actor too, but I

[Bill Maher]

feel like you got a show.

[Jack Whitehall]

I'm the school's dirty secret. Cause this school that I went to had a lot of illustrious people that attended there, like James Mason. And then it also had. What does prep school, this public school in England.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, public school.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, no, not public. Like public school here. Like private school here. Boarding school.

[Bill Maher]

Sounds the opposite of public.

[Jack Whitehall]

The opposite of public school. That's what I thought. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I can tell by your accent you didn't go to public school. This guy didn't go to public school. You know, you'd be. Talk like Scouse.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, like Mick Jagger. Yeah, yeah. Like.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, but they had, they, they. Kate Middleton went there as well, so she. They. They love talking about her. And that's in all of the. Whenever they write about it in the newspapers, it's Kate Middleton, James Mason, and then I'm the dirty secret. Because I think I'm like a low Rent comedian. And so they maybe didn't want to.

[Bill Maher]

But you're so successful. But you're so successful now. Well, I mean, I think you're doing. You know, you're like The Beatles in 63. You're. You're breaking. You're trying to break the American market, right?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

We got to get you on Ed Sullivan.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. Then we'll take you down to Miami to meet Muhammad Ali. It's going to be a great photo op. And I'm telling you, I'm going to break it. Jack Mania will be sweeping the country. And I'm going to talk to your manager, Brian Epstein. Are you a Beatles fan?

[Jack Whitehall]

I like the Beatles. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I've got Martin Lewis here next week. He's like the world's foremost authority on the Beatles. So I can't wait to talk to somebody who knows more about it than I do. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. We're about to get it.

[Bill Maher]

It's amazing how they endure.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

It's like there's always something new with the Beatles.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And it always sells like crazy.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. And four movies on the way from.

[Bill Maher]

That's what I mean, there's always something new, something.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, they get. You know, Paul and Ringo are always doing something. You know, it's. Boy. I mean, it's 70 years since John and Paul met. It's this month. That's why we're doing it with Martin Lewis next week, because they met in July of 1956. That's 70 years ago. Because that really was the birth of the Beatle. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, 70. Fuck. That's exactly how old I am. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

That's crazy. I saw them in that. They were in a. Last time I was in la, I saw Ringo and Paul having dinner together in a restaurant at the table next to me.

[Bill Maher]

Did you say anything?

[Jack Whitehall]

No, no, I felt. No, I didn't. They look like so deep in conversation and they're amazing.

[Bill Maher]

You're English, you get the pass.

[Jack Whitehall]

I also share a birthday with Ringo Starr, but I felt. I don't know whether I could go over and interrupt his conversation with Paul McCartney to tell her that we were born on the street.

[Bill Maher]

What do you think they were talking about?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I mean, they look like. I mean, it looked like old friends catching up. It was great.

[Bill Maher]

You know, I was listening to Get Back came on the radio yesterday.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I remember seeing in the movie, they show him writing it.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, he's sitting there in the morning waiting for John, who was always late, and he's on his bass. And he's just writing it like. He's playing the bass, like a guitar he sometimes did, and he's writing. You could see, like the beginning of the song. It's quite interesting if you're a Beatle fan. If you're not, it's nothing. And the lyrics completely changed to just a bunch of gobbledygo.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, I love the Beatles, but sometimes they were just like, this is a great song. I'm sorry. Lyrics. We. Whatever. It's just, hello, goodbye, goodbye, hello. Just come on, people. You want everything. It's a great song.

[Jack Whitehall]

It's a great song.

[Bill Maher]

It's just. It's not. And that's one of them. You know, Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, you know, but he. Whatever. That's not how it started. It seemed to be about immigration, really. Get back.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Get back to where you once belonged. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was an issue in the 60s, too. And it's not clear whether he was like, actually saying that, which could be.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Or like sort of making fun of people who were saying that. Yeah, yeah. But it was the beginning of something that. Look, I don't know how much you want to get into politics, but I would love to pick your brain about what's going on in England, because I read about it all the time.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And it looks like a bit of what we see here in America, but even more pronounced, you know, immigration issues.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Islamization issues.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah. I mean, you have seven prime ministers in 10 years and we've got a new one on the way. And then this, like. I think everyone's just sort of, I guess, like, bracing themselves for Nigel Farage to be, you know, Prime Minister.

[Bill Maher]

He's the Conservative one.

[Jack Whitehall]

He's the Conservative guy. Yeah. Who's just stood down to run in another election to get his seat back. But, yeah, he's the kind of. He's the, you know, leader of reform. And I think all of the other parties are sort of scrabbling around to try and work out the best way to fight a future election.

[Bill Maher]

What I read in the Free Press, which I feel like is a down the middle place, which is very rare in this country. Either it's like all the way left or all the way right. But I trust them and their reporting. And it sounds like England just got way too woke on a bunch of crazy shit. I think the last thing I read was, like, they passed a milestone where the Amount of money they giving out in welfare is for the first time more than what they take in, in taxes. Like every third eligible to work. Man is not working. Yeah, they're like on disability. And some people really are, of course, but like, not that many. And we have the same kind of issue here. Like a lot of young. They always talking here about young men are in crisis. You know, you see it because they go out and they shoot people, you know, and that, you know, gets a conversation going. Why did this guy. And it's always kind of the same thing. They feel like they can't get laid.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

It's a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People who can't get laid. Islamic terrorists. Yeah, you know, show me the one who was like, God, this guy never stopped having sex. And the next thing we knew, he blew up the.

[Jack Whitehall]

Never read about that guy.

[Bill Maher]

Never read.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, he was a real lothario all day long. Exactly. When he wasn't womanizing, he was reading some really disturbing on the Internet. And it's weird that all these women found him so attractive because some of his chat was just a real turn off.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I mean, it's never that. Never. Just sex, sex, sex, and then bomb. The biggest change AI has made for me isn't that it saves time. Everybody says that the real change is that our team at Club Random works differently now. We used to bounce between emails, documents, notes, research, and about 20 browser tabs that our producer always has open. But now that's changed with Claude from Anthropic. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop it good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move. Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Once you connect Claude to your workspace, you give it context to help with practically everything you need. Connect it to your documents, calendar, email, and other tools, and suddenly you're not explaining the same project over and over again. It's like having one place where all the pieces finally come together. And Cowork takes it even further. You can send tasks from your phone, have Claude work on your desktop, and come back to completed reports, spreadsheets and presentations. Not rough ideas. Actual finished work. Ready to have an AI that can tackle real work? Try Claude Cowork today. Claude AI clubrandom this summer.

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[Bill Maher]

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[Jack Whitehall]

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[Bill Maher]

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[Jack Whitehall]

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[Bill Maher]

And it's the same thing with the people here who like, they just. They partly forgot how to get laid. Because of the phone.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I don't know. How old were you when the smartphone came along? Were you?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Were you. Did you have a period of your life?

[Jack Whitehall]

No, I remember just before. Yeah. I'm 38, so I sort of remember pre.

[Bill Maher]

So you had a life where you didn't.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Where you had to talk to a girl?

[Jack Whitehall]

Well, I had to talk to a girl. Yeah. Proper old school courtship on my not so public school. Writing letters. Epistolary.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. And how'd it go? How were you?

[Jack Whitehall]

You're great. I think I benefited.

[Bill Maher]

Really?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. I benefited from the Internet age. No, no.

[Bill Maher]

I think I would have.

[Jack Whitehall]

I was a late.

[Bill Maher]

If I could have texted.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I just.

[Jack Whitehall]

So much better in that.

[Bill Maher]

So I was super shy.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I couldn't walk up to a girl.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean like into my. Not totally into my early 20s, but like, I certainly could have had a better time at college. Not that there were a lot of eligible women, but if I knew then what I knew now, could I have gotten them in like 10 minutes?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, it's all about talking. I mean, girls.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, obviously there are some things that are deal breakers for girls. You know, if Quasimodo comes up to you. I can't blame a woman for like, you know, it's not the hunchback. It really isn't. It really is. You know, but whatever it is. But like, you know, it's.

[Jack Whitehall]

That's became a stand up comedian though, because that's. That's a way of talking to girls. But you could prepare it all and there was other people and an audience and a. Like the actually going up and talking one on one. Terrifying. But if they're all in darkness and I've had weeks to think about it and really hone it and. Yeah, that kind of conversation. Great. One way with a paying audience.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Jack Whitehall]

And shrouded in darkness.

[Bill Maher]

It's also I found amazing in that same vein, the way I can say things to millions of people on camera if I'm doing my show, like about my staff or something. That I just don't say it in private, you know, I don't, like, call a meeting at the office and say, you know, you're all brilliant, but I can say it. And my brilliant staff, who is incredible, and it's like, somehow that's easier. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Why is that? I find, yeah, real life, like, can get so tongue tied when trying to express emotions or sentimentality or things. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I also never cry in real life. In real life, I mean. And they've tried to make me sometimes on my show, you know, I got in trouble and they'd love to do that in America. Cancel culture and all that. Nope. Never got me down.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But like in a movie, I mean, I just cried over me To Date with Ted Hamilton. I mean, like, any. Any movie, even the silliest rom com that, like, puts the elements together in such a way that in the last reel, the girl is saying that to the guy. And it can get me. I know, but in real life, you can't get me.

[Jack Whitehall]

See, I had such a fear that I would not cry at the birth of my daughter. And the thing that made me most scared is, again, how readily I will cry at stuff that feels so inappropriate to cry at. And so, like, I can watch, you know, like daytime television. I can watch quiz shows. I've cried at Deal or no Deal in the uk. I remember watching this episode, Deal or no Deal?

[Bill Maher]

Deal or no Deal, because of Meghan Markle. Wasn't she on it? She was on it and it made you cry.

[Jack Whitehall]

It wasn't the Meghan Markle episode, but I just remember there being some episode where someone was trying to win a holiday and they hadn't been away with their daughter for so long. And I'm fucking gushing. And I, like, the emotions are clearly so close to the surface and then I'm like real life moments where I should be, you know, the tears should be flowing and then I'm suddenly a husk and that confuses me.

[Bill Maher]

Show me a video of a Marine coming home and surprising his daughter in the classroom.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

And I'm gone.

[Jack Whitehall]

I'm gone.

[Bill Maher]

It's just gone.

[Jack Whitehall]

But then again, if Marines. Yeah. And I was reunited with my child, I don't think I would cry. But watching someone, watching it, experiencing it with someone else.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I think you might cry.

[Jack Whitehall]

Maybe.

[Bill Maher]

I think that.

[Jack Whitehall]

I think I would be crying before. I think I would be crying when they said that.

[Bill Maher]

Maybe that may be one.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Fuck, I've got to join the Marines. I think there would be a lot of tears in the field?

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, I don't mean to say I don't like kids, but, you know, they do have their drawbacks. They make it harder to cheat. No, I kid. I kid. That's not what I meant to say at all. It must be the pot. I don't know. I blame it on the pot, Jack. It's, you know, it's like truth serum.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, Woody warned me. He said when he did this, he potterk in the pot.

[Bill Maher]

He what?

[Jack Whitehall]

He said he pottered in the pot and there was the truth serum and there was 45 minutes of unerrable material.

[Bill Maher]

Totally here. And then we did one out the woods recently.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, we just. We are ridiculous.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, but I tell you, if you said to me when I was your age, you know, at 70, you'll be laughing your ass off, having a great time, getting high, I'd just be okay. I'll take that.

[Jack Whitehall]

Amazing.

[Bill Maher]

I never thought. I mean, my father certainly didn't have fun times like that when he was 70. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, so, you know, one reason I avoided marriage and kids, you know, like, I like this kind of. I just like it. I don't know why I have to graduate. No, I'm not saying it's bad or. Obviously, it's such a super impulse in so many people, especially to have kids. I know guys who are terrible husbands, but great fathers.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That they take seriously.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

They always take that seriously. The ones I know. But they'll be real dogs, you know, sometimes. But the kid. No, Like, I love being a dad. They say that. So I get that that's a very big impulse that I do not have, but I get it. And certainly everybody can't be lying about it because it would be a massive conspiracy to try to convince me that every single person I ever talked to about it says, it's a love you can't imagine. It changed my life. My whole perspective is different. It's like doing heroin. I never did it, so I can't tell, but I get it, that it's great and if I had to choose, I'd take the heroin. But that's just me.

[Jack Whitehall]

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I bet you you say the same thing about.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Having a kid. What's your reaction, Jack, to having a kid?

[Jack Whitehall]

It's great. I'm better than heroin.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, wait. No. It changed my life and my first. Come on, you're not gonna gush like that at all.

[Jack Whitehall]

No, I'm not gonna gush to you. Really? No. I don't wanna. You know.

[Bill Maher]

Wow.

[Jack Whitehall]

You know, it's amazing. It's great. But smoking weed and having a laugh in the woods with Woody Harrelson in your 70s does also sound pretty great. So you've made your bed.

[Bill Maher]

But I'm not here to this Mark Twain Award. I was just. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. And Woody was one of the speakers, you know, so I was looking forward to the whole thing, except for one part of it, which was the show is on a Sunday night.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And they kind of milk it. It's the Kennedy Center. And there's this the night before dinner. And I was like, okay, that's kind of anticlimactic, isn't it? Why are we doing this? And then this. And with speakers and stuff. I'm like, we're doing this the next night. Why are we doing this? Can we just have the main event and save all our muster for that? No, you have to. Okay. So I was like, all right. And then Woody was there, and we went outside, and then I just had the best time. I was heckling the speakers. You know, this Kennedy center, they're closing it. This was the last show for two years because they're going under renovation. Right. But as I. As we all walk through it, it's pristine. It's perfect. I think it's a scam. I don't think it needs any renovation. It looks fantastic to me. And the guy from Wells Fargo who they're sponsoring. It turned out Woody and I both have our money with Wells Fargo.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And he was up there and talking about, you know, Wells Fargo was sponsoring the renovation, you know, and I was high and yelled out, not the guy who did the pool. So it just turned out to be such a fun night.

[Jack Whitehall]

How was it to hear all those people speaking about you? How do you feel in the.

[Bill Maher]

Well, that was the next night. Well, it was that night, too. Maureen Dowd and Jake Tapper and a few other people spoke. But it was awesome. It was awesome. Who would not like that? I mean, you can't be counterintuitive in life. I mean, you can a little bit, but, you know, I'm all for being intuitive. Leave the counterpart out. Good things are good.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Lots of great people who went out of their way. Everyone I asked came.

[Jack Whitehall]

Everybody else.

[Bill Maher]

Everybody except Jerry Seinfeld, who was on the road. He couldn't. And he made a beautiful video for me. Everybody else, Louis ck Jay Leno, Whitney Cummings, Woody Arianna Huffington, Stephen A. Smith, John Mellencamp sang the song at the end Everybody said yes immediately and came. That's what meant the most to me, that all these people would do that for me. So. So, yeah, good things are good. That's my opinion. And I don't. I don't care who knows it.

[Jack Whitehall]

You exist on a strange plane there where it feels like you're like, post cancellation without having ever been cancelled as well. I feel like you're uncancelable, always on the cusp. That's a great place to exist, right?

[Bill Maher]

Well, it's like saying, like, hey, you're walking across two buildings on a high wire. It's a great place to exist. I'm used to it, you know, I'm used to it. And like, if you're 70 and you've been on TV for 33 years, if it ended tomorrow, look, I still won. Yeah, and it could. Because, you know, when people say, you're beyond cancel, please. It's not hard to get canceled still.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, that's true.

[Bill Maher]

It really isn't. And the truth is I never really did anything that should have gotten me canceled. And, you know, lots of people really have been wonderful in standing by me. Cause they know me or they know the work. And you just. What you have to do is always be clawing back against the emo youth of Wokeville who live to feel morally superior to everybody, especially older people. Have you ever gotten in, like, trouble for saying something that really that people, like, were attacking you for?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I had it once, like, relatively early on in my career and it was. And I remember being in the eye of the storm and feeling like it was the worst thing that was ever gonna happen. And I thought it was like the end of my career. And I was on the front page of the newspapers and they were trying to sort of whip up a real frenzy. And it was such a stupid joke as well. It was a joke on a TV show about the late Queen and it was an obsidian Elton John.

[Bill Maher]

No, I'm kidding.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, it was a. I remember it. It was during. When the Queen had a sort of jubilee pageant where they did the boats down.

[Bill Maher]

Jubilee. Yeah. When she's in office 50 years.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. And they did a thing where they had these pageants down the Thames and she was an old lady at the time. And there was a whole thing about how she'd stood for the whole of this pageant and saying she's an old lady and she shouldn't be standing all the time and she should have sat down.

[Bill Maher]

And then you said that.

[Jack Whitehall]

No, no. Well, this is. And actually, I didn't Even make the joke. I just took some elements and presented them, and it was a sort of build your own joke. A couple of days later, Prince Philip went to hospital with a urinary infection, and I said it was her anniversary. He ended up with a urinary infection and she didn't want to sit down, which leads me to believe they celebrated in the way that a lot of couples celebrate an anniversary. And. And, yeah, and then it went out on tv. I mean, it got a bit of a groan from the audience, but then it became like this scandal that I'd made a joke about our monarch enjoying anal sex.

[Bill Maher]

See, that's so ridiculous, because at least when I got in trouble for things I've said like, you know, the terrorists weren't cowards after 9 11. It's because it was something important. It was an important thing. Whether you agree or don't agree. Your shit was just like. I mean, the way they lose their shit about the Queen, like, who gives a fuck?

[Jack Whitehall]

It's fucking crazy.

[Bill Maher]

It is crazy. And you know what? It's even everybody British. I've had people like Piers Morgan, who can be off the reservation and I think say some dumb things, but he's generally a guy who you can have a conversation with. I like Piers.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, he's good.

[Bill Maher]

He said some stupid things about me, but, okay, people do have bad days and whatever. He's on his period. He said a stupid thing, whatever. But, like, Sharon Osborne, who I like a lot, like, rational. You started on the Queen and suddenly it's like, not funny anymore. And I'm like, are you fucking with me or do you. No, they're not fucking with me. They really don't like it. You know, don't call her an old bag. Yeah, that's just not. And it's like, okay, all right. Yeah, I see. And I, you know, that's just, you know, they should be.

[Jack Whitehall]

Of everyone, like, the most fair game. I feel like the most. You could not be more punching up and if.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Jack Whitehall]

But I think there's. Again, it's. There's definitely a sort of like, Middle England hysteria. And that was in the Daily Mail and there was a couple of, like, Ofcom complaints, and they'd had a whole thing a couple of years before with Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross when they'd said they'd done a prank call that had gone wrong and it had been on the BBC. So there's, like, the BBC as well. That's another thing that, like, the minute they're involved, it becomes, like, much more of A story. And it can get whipped up into a frenzy. And I remember it being something that was just like such a storm in a teacup. But then it became like, you know, it fed the beast. It was like part of the news cycle. It was column inches. It was, you know, online discourse.

[Bill Maher]

And then it goes away as if it never existed. It's like Covid.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Like it's the worst thing ever. Worst thing ever. Worst thing ever. And then suddenly like, what? No, just go back to life. Go back?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

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[Bill Maher]

Got a Sam's Cafe pizza. Order up.

[Jack Whitehall]

You know the best part about this spicy Italian sausage? I voted for this topping. Yeah, just another perk of being a member.

[Bill Maher]

Come join us, Sam's Club. Like, I never thought it was the worst thing ever. So like, okay, but we're gonna pretend that that like, told to your insanity. You know, I mean, obviously some measures should have been taken, but they went crazy. But yeah, I've had the exact same experience. It's like crazy. We have to get everybody involved. Get everybody involved.

[Jack Whitehall]

We're crazy.

[Bill Maher]

And then, you know, Britney Spears gets a new boyfriend and it's like, now we're onto that.

[Jack Whitehall]

That's what my publisher said on the phone. I remember him saying, you just need to pray that someone dies this week.

[Bill Maher]

They will. And something always happens.

[Jack Whitehall]

Something will happen.

[Bill Maher]

And then the fucking are suddenly driven to a new pasture.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That's what it is.

[Jack Whitehall]

Exactly.

[Bill Maher]

You can drive the sheep to a new pasture. It's easy. They're sheep, Jack.

[Jack Whitehall]

They're sheep.

[Bill Maher]

They're sheep and it's fucking sheep.

[Jack Whitehall]

There's like a sort of a villain of the Internet as well. For 24 hours, 48 hours, and then on to the next. It's like, who can we put in the stocks for this period? And. And the other one I nearly had, that was. That was. This was like a near miss. But. And I remember it. I had a late night show only for like a couple of seasons in the uk. And I remember at the behest of the guy, one of the producers from the network, he was obsessed with us doing this fucking lame. He wanted, like, really, like just Route 1, like shock comedy. And he was like. I remember the notes that he used to give. Like, genuinely at one point he was like, I want a baby dressed as Hitler.

[Bill Maher]

And we're like, what?

[Jack Whitehall]

He was like, I just think that's funny. A baby dressed as Hitler. And we did. Because no one could fucking stand up with the mustache. With a mustache.

[Bill Maher]

You put a mustache on a baby.

[Jack Whitehall]

Mustache on a baby. I had a baby.

[Bill Maher]

I'm not gonna lie. I kind of love that. I kind of love it. I kind of. That is, I've never.

[Jack Whitehall]

And we'd always ask why? Like, why is there the baby?

[Bill Maher]

Somebody would have done it. Did you put a hat on? I mean.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You did?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, he had the little. The hat had a uniform and the

[Bill Maher]

uniform with the iron cross.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Wow.

[Jack Whitehall]

Baby Hitler.

[Bill Maher]

Baby Hitler.

[Jack Whitehall]

But the problem is, once you said

[Bill Maher]

yes and Hugo Boss did the.

[Jack Whitehall]

But once you said yes to baby Hitler, it really emboldened this guy. Cause then there was more ideas. So once you've accepted that baby Hitler's fine, then you just get a dirge of these fucking terrible ideas. And then it led to a thing where there was a sketch. Not a sketch. It was like in the. Like cut from the monologue to a sketch about Michael Jackson. And it was again, I think I can't even remember what the sketch was, but it was a sort of Michael Jackson pedophile sketch that again, it wasn't even in the news cycle at the time. But he was like, I just want a Michael Jackson pedophile visual gag at the end of this monologue. So we did the Michael Jackson pedophile joke. And I'm watching it go out and feeling like, you know, I have no spine. And I'm just like a puppet for this idiotic man doing his stupid ideas, watching it, waiting for it to go out. And on the news, they announced that Michael Jackson has died. And it's the night that he's died. And the show goes out at 11. And I'm like, fuck. I called the producer of the show. I was like, we need to do

[Bill Maher]

something Can I ask what the joke was?

[Jack Whitehall]

I can't even remember what the joke. But it was a guy. It was like a visual. It was a guy dressed up as Michael Jackson again, I think, with a. There was a lot of babies involved. It was like a prop baby Michael Jones. And it was like a load of jokes about him being a predator. But then it was the night that he died, so then we had to call up the guy from the network. And the guy from the network had to literally ring in and get someone to try and pull the show. And I was watching minute by minute, like, praying that he'd get through in time, but it was like 11 o' clock at night. And he literally had to call up someone from the Channel 4 switchboard and said, it's so and so. I'm the head of the network, you need to pull this show. Because the whole show, the whole thing on every news network was about how Michael Jackson had died and people candlelit vigils and tears. And then we've got this really, like, fucking horrendous.

[Bill Maher]

So they pulled the whole show.

[Jack Whitehall]

I was watching it. They literally had the opening credits and then suddenly it went to black. And it was just a screen saying, unfortunately, there's been a technical difficulty. And it was just like a holding card. And then they put something else on. And within like minutes, he'd managed to get it pulled. And I remember watching that, my heart pounding, going, I'm gonna be just absolutely,

[Bill Maher]

of course, pilloried for this. In retrospect, it doesn't look like you were wrong, you know, but I'm not wrong. I mean, there were so many. I resisted doing Michael Jackson fucks little boy jokes for a long time when I did not know it was true.

[Jack Whitehall]

Ye.

[Bill Maher]

Then after they did the special, I mean, even Oprah came out, did a special after the special, an HBO documentary. Two kids came forward with a testimony that was just so obviously true. And, you know, it wasn't like I was surprised, but I was jealous because there was always so many great Michael Jackson jokes. Like, why does Michael Jackson shop at Kmart?

[Jack Whitehall]

Why?

[Bill Maher]

Because boys pants are half off, ladies and gentlemen. And I was not availing myself to this at the time. Yeah, that's what kind of integrity I have, Jack.

[Jack Whitehall]

You have integrity I was not.

[Bill Maher]

But that's. Isn't that a great line?

[Jack Whitehall]

That's a great line.

[Bill Maher]

Boy's pants are half off. You gotta love jokes.

[Jack Whitehall]

But I feel like. Yeah, and you go to the comedy clubs when something like that happens as well, and you see some Comedians that'll be up there on stage and they'll be telling jokes hours after the beloved figure or entertainer has passed away.

[Bill Maher]

They say the sick jokes originate in prison. I don't know if that's a canard or what. Cause always there's like a sick joke. Very quickly, my friend, do you remember the comedian Gilbert Godfrey?

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh, yeah. Hilarious.

[Bill Maher]

Hilarious.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, he was the Aflac duck.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Which is an insurance company with a duck logo.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I don't know why insurance companies are the lizard, the duck. This is what they do. I don't know why this makes people buy insurance. You know, hey, look, your agent is a salamander. Okay? Well, that's what I want when my house burns down. Okay? But this is what they do. And he was the athletic duck and lost it because the tsunami. Do you remember the tsunami?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was up on stage.

[Bill Maher]

No, he tweeted it out.

[Jack Whitehall]

Tweeted it. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

It was like 2004. And he did like 50 jokes about the tsunami, which killed a lot of people. You know, what school do you go to? I don't know. It's floating by, whatever. You know, all these just. And that was just Gilbert.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I mean, his. His sort of like childlike naivete, which was the. I think the engine behind the genius of his comedy. The flip side of that was this, that he didn't think there was gonna be blowback to the night of the tsunami. Not just one.

[Jack Whitehall]

No.

[Bill Maher]

But, you know, just like 50 foot

[Jack Whitehall]

showing all of his working as well.

[Bill Maher]

I wish I had them in front of me now. And I'm sure you can call them up on your phone.

[Jack Whitehall]

But so, yeah, I feel thankful, though, that I like. Cause I did a sift of all of my Twitter and went through and deleted a load of stuff and made sure that there was nothing out, like in the ether that was potentially ruinous.

[Bill Maher]

But doesn't it live somewhere?

[Jack Whitehall]

It lives somewhere.

[Bill Maher]

The cloud is forever.

[Jack Whitehall]

But I think I started stand up. I definitely started stand up in an era before sort of camera phones and Twitter. But when I first started as well, I think a lot of my inspirations were comedians that were much coarser. And I tried shock comedy. And you do. And I had much less of a filter. And I think to some of my early gigs as well, when I was a less skilled comedian. And I would just wanna say something to try and get elicit a reaction and shock people in the room. And I feel so fucking thankful that that, you know, wasn't in an era where they're now, like, filming every gig, or people have got their camera phones out. Cause I said some stuff on stage in my early 20s that I think

[Bill Maher]

you should go back to that. I do. No, I mean, I would like to see that. Because you're funny and aging guy. And he can get away with it, you know, And. And I mean, that's my kind of comedy.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, I mean, WC Fields, I think it was him. Maybe that's apocryphal, but attributed to him. Once said, the difference between a comedian and a civilian is to make a civilian laugh, all you have to do is dress up like an old lady and walk down the street and fall down a manhole cover in a manhole. To make a comedian laugh, it has to really be an old lady. So that's what I strive for, pushing an old lady down. Not for everybody, but you have a family. You can't. You have to think, see, I don't have to worry about, like, you know, oh, my gosh, how am I gonna feed my kids if I fuck up on stage? You know? But you do now.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But you're.

[Jack Whitehall]

But I do think there's something to that as well. Like, there comes a slight. You can hold onto the fact that the thing that you've said that will probably bring you down is already out there. That certainly allows you to feel slightly more relaxed.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, I feel like Cancel Culture is right now, like, Covid. The worst of it is over.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

But it will always be with us.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You can always get it.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But I think we've passed the peak. But I saw the other day in the paper. It could have been in the Daily Mail. You read the Daily Mail?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That's your.

[Jack Whitehall]

I mean, I wouldn't say that's my countryman. My mother's paper.

[Bill Maher]

No, but it's English.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, it's English. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

People love it here.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Mail Online is huge. The Daily Mail Online. That's. My wife is on that website.

[Bill Maher]

Really?

[Jack Whitehall]

10 hours a day.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, 10 hours a day.

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, my God. Well, anyway, I think it was there that I read that. Love Island.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

You said Easy.

[Jack Whitehall]

I wasn't expecting to bring up Love Island.

[Bill Maher]

Why are you so excited about me? Love Island. Yes.

[Jack Whitehall]

Easy

[Bill Maher]

just had two.

[Jack Whitehall]

Two people kicked off it.

[Bill Maher]

Correct.

[Jack Whitehall]

Because historic tweets or.

[Bill Maher]

No, no. What have they done? Singing along.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

Singing along with a rap song. I don't think we need to go into detail.

[Jack Whitehall]

No, but my Space.

[Bill Maher]

But singing along, you know, how about just a warning?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, just so I don't know. What do you think?

[Jack Whitehall]

Another guy lost his job.

[Bill Maher]

Over to you, Jack.

[Jack Whitehall]

Another guy lost his job. A TV chef. For singing. For singing along. The rap part.

[Bill Maher]

I remember when Gwyneth Paltrow got in trouble for singing a song about the capital of France. Yeah, I'll leave it that vague.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I think I know which one that might have been.

[Bill Maher]

That's how delicate this subject is. We can't even say the capital of France part.

[Jack Whitehall]

Say the capital of France.

[Bill Maher]

Not even France. Let's just say a country in Central Europe. It's between Germany and Spain. But, you know, I mean, it could be Belgium.

[Jack Whitehall]

But yeah, there definitely has to be maybe more warning system or.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, just. Just stop being in it just for the catching someone. That's what I. Just stop pretending that you're actually making the world better because you made a contestant on Love Fuck show, whatever that show is.

[Jack Whitehall]

The Love Fuck Show.

[Bill Maher]

The Love Fuck Show.

[Jack Whitehall]

The Love Fuck Show.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, that's a spinner. My show was always Temptation Island. You ever see that?

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I think that may be similar to Love Island.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But that was on way at the beginning of the century and then they rebooted it. It was my guilty pleasure for a while. But I didn't watch the last season. I thought the people weren't cute. It's like, if you're not gonna have cute people, please. I'm not watching this for the contest.

[Jack Whitehall]

I watch Love island by proxy. Cause my wife is a fan of it. But I feel like, really, I like it for a little bit when they're all betraying each other and cheating and you're seeing them emotionally dissolve. And I feel like I quite like the schadenfreude of that. And watching people that are, you know, miserable, like young, hot, happy people being put through the wringer, I think is good. But then as soon as they become happy and in love and coupled up and seeing which young, hot, happy couple is the happiest, there's no rub.

[Bill Maher]

But doesn't it usually go to shit after that? Well, do they actually ever get married?

[Jack Whitehall]

I think they do.

[Bill Maher]

They do.

[Jack Whitehall]

I think so.

[Bill Maher]

From Love Island.

[Jack Whitehall]

From Love Island. They get married, but the show ends at them, at their happiest and all coupled up and in love. And it's a happy ending. And I think they need to do one with married couples where it starts with them all married and then it's Like a summer of them just falling apart.

[Bill Maher]

Now, the show they should do. I've mentioned this before. I'm hoping someone in the ether will hear it and make it happen. Is we have a show here called the Golden Bachelor.

[Jack Whitehall]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

You ever heard of it?

[Jack Whitehall]

I've heard of the Bachelor. I haven't heard of the Golden Bachelor.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, it was huge. Like they. And that's a guy who's like 70. Yeah, I think he was 72. Well, of course. Because this is America and things have to be appropriate. It was a bunch of ladies. It was the same plot. He's the Bachelor. But they were all age appropriate, right?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That's not interesting.

[Jack Whitehall]

No.

[Bill Maher]

Me as the Golden Bachelor with the age that I find appropriate. That's a show.

[Jack Whitehall]

That's a show.

[Bill Maher]

That's a show and a lot of fun. I would promise to be completely chaste. No kissing, no sex, none of that. I just want to talk to people and I just think it'll be really fun and funny and instructive and also a blow against ageism. Because, you know, love is where you find it. I mean, you know, it's always okay when Madonna is going out with a 24 year old. It's always okay when Kate Beckinsall does it. It's always okay that Cher is 80. In marrying a guy happily, that's always okay, but somehow in the other way, it's not okay. I don't get it.

[Jack Whitehall]

And the golden element was he was the. Was the Bachelor. You know, was he well off? Was. Was that part of the conceit of it or.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I mean, he wasn't living out of his car, you know, but that's

[Jack Whitehall]

quite a good twist. You think he's a golden Bachelor.

[Bill Maher]

And actually he's, you know, he was a generic white guy who probably, you know, worked for Crumbly and Warming Corporation. Yeah, yeah. You know, just was like. Like this guy who. Look, people as we know are always looking for love as they should. I mean, the world is a sinful, hateful place. And one of the few great things about it is that love is always there somewhere and it's always available. It's not sold in stores, but it is around. And you can always, you know, get lucky or maybe you make your own luck with love by, you know, a lot of people say, you know, whatever you put out comes back to you. I think there certainly is an element to that. So, you know, there are a lot of ladies who are. They're probably mostly divorced. Maybe some are widows in their 50s or 60s, you know, looking for late in life love. I mean, you shouldn't give up on love at any time in life, you know. Yeah. So obviously it may. American audiences ate it up.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

They fucking loved it. Because ladies, I think, you know, related to, oh, this is great, you know, you know, love late in life. And the guy, you know, he. I didn't watch it. He seemed like kind of a stiff to me. But, you know, by actuarial tables we know women live longer. So as you get into those age ranges, there's more women than men. I remember the reverse of this when I was in college and there was way more men than women. It sucks. So men who are 70, you know, if they're into age appropriate dating, they got their pick of the litter in the age old home. They're having lots of sex. Did you know?

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I visited.

[Bill Maher]

Like STDs are out of control in the old age.

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh, my God. Yeah, I went to the one in Arizona, that massive. There's a massive compound there. And they were all. It was wild and they were all.

[Bill Maher]

What were you doing there?

[Jack Whitehall]

I was doing a travel show. I was pitching a new reality format where I date around the old age community.

[Bill Maher]

Was your wife okay with this?

[Jack Whitehall]

How I met her? Honey, she's 80. I didn't mention that.

[Bill Maher]

It came home smelling like Ben Gay. What's going on?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I found her in one of those homes. She was very confused, but I got her onto the plane with promises. Bob Monkhouse. I managed to get her.

[Bill Maher]

Does your wife know who Bob Monkhouse is?

[Jack Whitehall]

She would not know who Bob.

[Bill Maher]

She's too young for that.

[Jack Whitehall]

She's too young for that.

[Bill Maher]

New cradle robbery.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

How dare you not date completely appropriately. She has to be born exactly within the year you were born. How old is your wife?

[Jack Whitehall]

My wife is 34.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, well, that's completely respectable.

[Jack Whitehall]

Completely respectable.

[Bill Maher]

Ridiculous.

[Jack Whitehall]

My father and mother, they have a big age gap. My father's 86, my mother's 66.

[Bill Maher]

Not a big age gap to me, but I get your point. No, but to most people that is. But you know, it's human nature. Age gaps happen because we just like took a vote on happens because men require decades of head start to be even close to as mature as women are. They usually are. Fully. I mean, not fully. Okay. But a long way toward maturity when they're 25. Yeah, I wouldn't say that about 21 1.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

No.

[Bill Maher]

They're still in that experimental crazy. I'm away from home. Let's see What? Dicks are like, phase, you know, okay. But not 25. They grow up pretty fast. Yeah, Yeah, I hear. But men.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, the immaturity can go to Almost endlessly.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it can go to 80. I'm not mentioning any names. Somebody I know who just turned 80. Kind of immature.

[Jack Whitehall]

Buddy of yours? Not your lunch and partner dinner? Sorry. Sorry.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Yeah. That's his list of insults. Did you see that?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, that's.

[Bill Maher]

It's a great artifact of history.

[Jack Whitehall]

Did he speak for you or the Mark Twain?

[Bill Maher]

No, he tried to stop it. He tried to get it thrown out.

[Jack Whitehall]

What?

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, he did. When it was announced, he had. His press secretary said, fake news. It's not happening. Bill Maher's not getting it.

[Jack Whitehall]

But what has he changed? Has he changed his tune on you?

[Bill Maher]

The Kennedy Center.

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh, the Trump. It was gonna be the Trump Kennedy Center.

[Bill Maher]

And then they took his. That was another controversy. I didn't think it was ever gonna happen because first he tried to stop it, but then it was going through, and then they took his name off the building. He didn't like it when they took his name off the building. He covered the building in drapery so you couldn't see anything on the building. I'm not kidding. And I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. If, at this point, 10 years into the Trump situation, you are still obsessing about his personality, my view is that's on you.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Should we always be criticizing, as I do, what he actually does while he's in office? Absolutely. But to keep just focusing on these personality things that we've talked about for 10 years, they're not going to change. That's who he is. I don't care when he calls me names now. It's like the way he does it. It's the way he talks. It's who he is. Of course he's going to hang a tarp on the building. He does these things, which you can't even imagine if you tried your hardest. What is he going to do now? Tarp on the building would never have come to me. But he is always going to do it. And when he does it, I just gotta go. Okay.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well played.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

This is what you do. And as long as it's something that doesn't really affect me or other people for real, I don't care about your reflecting pool. I don't care about your ballroom. I don't care what you do on the lawn. You can have UFC fights You can have sheep grazing there, like one president did. You can do anything, you pickleball. I don't give a shit what you do on the lawn. And if you're a person who does, you're just way too into Donald Trump as the who controls how you think in life. Everything is about him. I'm not going there with you. You know, and I'm winning.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I'm somebody he attacks personally. And I care less than you do. Your life is all about Donald Trump. Mine isn't. It's amazing things that people can be okay with if they like you.

[Jack Whitehall]

I know.

[Bill Maher]

Like, especially celebrities. Like, look again, people will argue Michael Jackson till forever, but if you're a reasonable person, it's pretty obvious. And it's just a lot of people just decided, we don't care. Yeah, we just don't care. And I certainly don't care about the music. I never stopped playing the music. I never stopped playing R. Kelly. Yeah, yeah. The music didn't rape anybody. The music is great. And I never even considered not playing what the fuck.

[Jack Whitehall]

But not quite a good enough canon to get away with the Michael Jackson levels of adulation. But there's definitely a. I'm just aware

[Bill Maher]

of the cognitive dissonance. I can like the music and be completely aware that the person who made it did terrible things. I mean, Thomas Jefferson wrote our Declaration of Independence. Again, sorry, man, but he was. I can't really couch it in any other polite word, a rapist because he had sex with a slave. Now, when you're a slave, you can't say no. That, to me, is the definition of rape. So a rapist wrote the Declaration of Independence. Life is full of contradictions like that. We had a revered union leader named Cesar Chavez in this country, in this state, who got rights for migrant farm workers. Revered. He's on the name of a thousand schools. Had to take it off. Turned out he was having horrible sexual predation on hundreds of women. And yet he was a great union leader. I mean, that's the world we live in. I can't explain it, but I'm not gonna pretend that those contradictions don't exist. And I'm not gonna stop playing Beat It.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Or Billie Jean, yeah, yeah. Or the way you make me feel. You know, I mean, he's just a. I watched the movie recently when I was in a hotel room. You know, there's a mic made a billion dollars.

[Jack Whitehall]

Oh, my God.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Of course, it ends before.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes, at a convenient moment.

[Bill Maher]

Very convenient moment. But, you know, Gauguin.

[Jack Whitehall]

He'd have to take all the Gauguins off the wall.

[Bill Maher]

Why? What did Gauguin do?

[Jack Whitehall]

He was, I think, had some sexual proclivities that were not acceptable by modern standards in Tahiti. Carvaggio. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

When he was in Tahiti.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

When he was in Tahiti. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

He abused the Tahitians.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I didn't hear about them.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I get my gossip the old fashioned way from the girls down at the nail salon. So I didn't see that on. Is that breaking news on the Internet? Goan's been cancelled. Oh, man, I idolized that guy. Boy, we have no heroes left. Don't tell me. Van Go, come on. Don't tell me Van Gogh. Was there something funny with the ear?

[Jack Whitehall]

Van Go, don't tell me.

[Bill Maher]

Cut the ear off so we could it or something weird like that. Yeah, somebody would do that.

[Jack Whitehall]

This is why my material doesn't work in America, because I'm doing James Mason impressions of my Gauguin material.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, the Gauguin. I think the g. I just think the Gauguin hunk needs a little work.

[Jack Whitehall]

Needs a little work.

[Bill Maher]

Let me coach.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. My cultural reference points are just not right for this market. You want to brave me like the people and I just need to.

[Bill Maher]

You're English, you know, English are more sophisticated. I once did a really, really funny editorial with lots of clips about how American television, especially serious like. And I don't mean that in a snarky way. I mean some really great shows, episodic shows on the, you know, premium networks, most notably my own hbo. It's always English actors. Yeah, succession.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Game of Thrones. And they're not making them do. I mean, in succession. They did American accents, but generally they want the English accent because especially if you're doing a historical piece, it bestows a certain gravitas that American accents just don't.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So Game of Thrones, why they have. Why do they have an English accent? It's a completely made up place.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

There's no reason for it, except when you talk like Kevin Costner, you just don't sound as. Not that he sounds like that, but I just mean when you're all American,

[Jack Whitehall]

it's just him as Robin Hood with his American accent. It really throws you. It's like.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, when Brad Pitt. Yeah, Brad Pitt, he's from Missouri.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That's about as middle American as you can get. When he did Troy.

[Jack Whitehall]

Troy. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

English accent. Sword. Hand me your sword. Brad Pitt. Doesn't say sword. Brad Pitt says sword like I do.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

They don't say soldiers.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But it's Troy.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Which is not English.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

We're talking about Greece in 1200 BC.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

This is when that takes place. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Are you looking forward to the Odyssey coming to the theater?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I think it's.

[Bill Maher]

It's good. Christopher Nolan.

[Jack Whitehall]

Christopher Nolan.

[Bill Maher]

What do you think? I think it's.

[Jack Whitehall]

I mean, are you excited to see that?

[Bill Maher]

I am beyond hard.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

As I was an English major, I read the Odyssey in college. Iliad and the Odyssey. I mean, you know, I would say the first two years of college, I thought, you know, I was gonna do something with my English degree.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Did not.

[Jack Whitehall]

Did not.

[Bill Maher]

But I do use English in my career. I mean. That's true. But I also think it was very helpful that I got a very broad knowledge. Probably more like what you typically get in England. We don't take education very seriously in this country. We really don't. But I think you probably still do. And, I mean, you feel like you. I mean, prep school, that. Whatever you call it. What is it? What do you call it?

[Jack Whitehall]

A public school?

[Bill Maher]

No, not. We establish. You're not. What was it?

[Jack Whitehall]

Eton, what I went to.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Marlborough. Marlborough College.

[Bill Maher]

College. But you were not college age, what we consider college age. Yeah. You jumped.

[Jack Whitehall]

But it's even more confusing because we don't go. Yeah. College is secondary school here in England. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

How old were you when you go to this place?

[Jack Whitehall]

I went. I. There. I went 13. I went to boarding school at 10.

[Bill Maher]

Thirteen?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So you're ripped out of your mother's arms at 13?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Was it traumatic? Not really.

[Jack Whitehall]

I was a little. I mean, for me, it wasn't too bad. I was only, like an hour away from home, and I didn't.

[Bill Maher]

Were you living in a dorm?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yeah, In a dorm. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So you didn't every night go to bed in your own room like I did?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You went to a dorm with. With dozens of other kids sleeping in bunk beds.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Really?

[Jack Whitehall]

But I kind of. I mean, some people have a bad experience. I actually. I was okay with it, but, like, my dad went seven. He was stuck on a train, went up to the north of England, like, four hours away from his home, and was there for, like, months on end in a Catholic boarding school raised by monks. It was brutal.

[Bill Maher]

That is brutal.

[Jack Whitehall]

My version was like, you know, much more.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. But, like, you say 13.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, 13.

[Bill Maher]

13. What I remember most about that age was I was masturbating Furiously, Constantly.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Can you do that in the setting of being in a dorm room with million. I mean I was. Luckily I had my own little room, tiny as it was. It was mine. It was a masturbatorium. But how could you have that if you were surrounded by other people? Wouldn't they hear the bed shaking?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I think there was probably a lot of that. I mean that were the stories of boarding schools.

[Bill Maher]

But everybody was doing it, so nobody. So nobody cared. It was just normal to hear a cacophony. A cacophony of frapping.

[Jack Whitehall]

Frapping at lights out. 10 boys with the lights out wanking themselves into a coat every night.

[Bill Maher]

So disgusting.

[Jack Whitehall]

But at least you haven't got your parents downstairs.

[Bill Maher]

I know, but when you think about all that spilled sperm in one room.

[Jack Whitehall]

I mean, some predatory housemaster listening at

[Bill Maher]

the door, that is the nightmare of the pro life crowd. I mean, just in one room, the amount of wasted possible babies. Right, Right.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. I think if anything, even worse when the like, you know, girls sinking themselves. I think there was boys harmonizing their masturbatory activity.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, sinking their period.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah, I think it was.

[Bill Maher]

Is that still a thing? Was that ever a thing or was that a wives tale?

[Jack Whitehall]

I think that was a w. I've

[Bill Maher]

always heard that my whole life. When they're together, is it that their periods sync up? Yeah, it could be.

[Jack Whitehall]

It could be.

[Bill Maher]

It could be. It could be. They're weird creatures.

[Jack Whitehall]

It's one of those.

[Bill Maher]

We don't understand them.

[Jack Whitehall]

It's one of those things I've been told. I've never wanted to challenge, just accepted it.

[Bill Maher]

I feel they're like lemurs. I've heard a lot about them, but I don't really know that much after all these years. I know they're mammalian, but. Yeah, I mean, it could be. They certainly have or are bruited to have. But I think they do have more of a, shall we say, intuition. I mean, women's intuition is a old saying.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I don't know. I mean, you think that's true? That they have more intuition than we do? Yeah, I do too.

[Jack Whitehall]

I do. I believe that.

[Bill Maher]

That.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I believe that more than the period one more readily able to believe that.

[Bill Maher]

No, there's nothing in the world like having a girlfriend or in your case, a wife that's smarter than you. Maybe not in every way. Maybe they don't, you know, know as much about the Ottoman Empire or something or the I. But like in key ways.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And ways that. Yeah. Just no matter how old you get just will always elude a man. And it comes.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Comes easy to them.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And, you know, I don't follow movies that well.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Like, I'm always the guy in the movies going, was that the same guy who had the mustache in the other scene? Oh. Oh. So he's working with that. You know, like, I need a guy.

[Jack Whitehall]

I need.

[Bill Maher]

I'm not that. I'm not that bright with some of the. If it's a really arcane kind of plot, I guess I don't see. I'm supposed to be an observational comedian, but, like, I don't see, like. And then I have to be told, oh, yeah. See, he took the envelope for the guy, and it had the same name. Oh, right.

[Jack Whitehall]

You know, so, you know, I have to guide my. We're the other way around. I have to guide my wife through movies, and she wants to know the entire plot from the beginning and wants me to tell. Tell her what's going on and then what is about to happen as well. And I'm like, that's not how storytelling works. You don't want me to ruin this for you. Like, you find out you don't need to know everything. You will learn things by the end of this scene if I tell you what happens,

[Bill Maher]

and you'll miss the satisfaction of how the storytellers wanted to unravel that way. That's the satisfaction. You gotta pull back the bow before you shoot the arrow.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

All right, well, I'm gonna release you back into the wild, Jack. It was a pleasure to get to know you.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I'm sure that America will be greeting you like the Beatles. Really? You're gonna do great here.

[Jack Whitehall]

Once they hear my tales of mutual masturbation.

[Bill Maher]

Leave out the French impressionists, right?

[Jack Whitehall]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Not just him, right? Not Van Gogh, Matisse.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, yeah. French impressionist. Avoid that. We're going to avoid.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

And. And French capital cities wrapping along to those. We're not going to do any of that.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Jack Whitehall]

You've given me a great, like, blueprint for how to break America.

[Bill Maher]

All right, bro?

[Jack Whitehall]

And I appreciate it.

[Bill Maher]

Sorry, there was a. They used to do a thing in every military movie. They would do the same gag where the, you know, the admiral and thank you, sir, and he said salutes, and the guy puts his hand and then they change. Do it like, I'll salute and you do the handshake and then

[Jack Whitehall]

club random.

[Bill Maher]

It was fun. So much fun.

[Jack Whitehall]

I'll text. Woody didn't.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[Jack Whitehall]

Tell him.

[Bill Maher]

Tell him we had a ball. And when you're here, call us. We'll all get together. Yeah.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah, I'd love that.

[Bill Maher]

Come back to the woods. Well, we'll party there.

[Jack Whitehall]

Yeah. Yeah.

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[Jack Whitehall]

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[Bill Maher]

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[Bill Maher]

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[Jack Whitehall]

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[Jack Whitehall]

And breathe.

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[Jack Whitehall]

1-800-contacts.

[Bill Maher]

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[Jack Whitehall]

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[Bill Maher]

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