(HBO)
Bill Maher unloaded on the “idiots” who did not understand his earlier joke comparing Zayn Malik to convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday’s “Real Time.” The comedian had already fired back at his critics in an interview, suggesting that only teenage girls should have taken offense at what he said. But he took things up a notch on “Real Time” in a sarcastic segment called “Explaining Jokes to Idiots.” Watch the video below.
For context: A couple of weeks ago, Maher jokingly pretended to be upset about Malik’s departure from One Direction, and then put up a side-by-side picture of Malik and Tsarnaev. Because Malik is Muslim, thousands of outraged fans attacked Maher for seemingly linking Malik to Tsarnaev’s act of terrorism.
But as Maher explained in Friday’s segment, he hadn’t even heard of Malik until the day he made fun of him, and had no idea the singer was Muslim. Maher said the entire joke was built around the physical resemblance between the two men, which the studio audience seemed to understand at the time because “they’re not idiots.”
“That’s it! They look alike!” said Maher. “Their facial features are quite similar, which is humorous because one is a murderer, and the other is in a boy band where they only murder the music.” Watch the video below, and tell us what you think.
