{"id":33095,"date":"2026-08-08T19:48:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33095"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:48:22","slug":"bill-maher-makes-weight-joke-about-ariana-grande-audience-groans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33095","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher Makes Weight Joke About Ariana Grande, Audience Groans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Too soon, too tasteless or just too cruel, take your pick, but <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/bill-maher\/\" id=\"auto-tag_bill-maher\" data-tag=\"bill-maher\">Bill Maher<\/a>\u2018s two <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/ariana-grande\/\" id=\"auto-tag_ariana-grande\" data-tag=\"ariana-grande\">Ariana Grande<\/a> weight jokes during his opening monologue on Friday\u2019s<em> Real Time With Bill Maher<\/em> were met with mixed audience reactions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maher sidled up to the subject by recapping some of the bad news of the week, then saying, \u201cI hope the aliens are here, I do. I hope they\u2019re here and watching us and they\u2019re going to save us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far, so good. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then:<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd, by the way, the administration this week, just a few days ago, maybe yesterday, unleashed a new trove of UFO files. Interesting things in there. Triangular craft, weird lights over an army base, a stick-like figure with large eyes \u2013 oh, that was just an Ariana Grande video.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The<em> Real Time<\/em> audience took that one in stride, giving it a good laugh and applause, but then Maher pushed his luck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Doing his usual butter-wouldn\u2019t-melt bit, the host continued, \u201cPlease, we kid. We kid. Maybe that joke will make her eat something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That last jab \u2013 misguided from a treatment standpoint if nothing else \u2013 was a step too far for the audience, who responded with groans and awwws. \u201cI\u2019m saying, maybe it will help,\u201d Maher continued before quickly segueing to another food topic: \u201cDemocrats,\u201d he said, \u201chave found a candidate who hates Thanksgiving.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grande recently announced that she was dropping plans to appear in a West End revival of the musical Sunday in the Park with George alongside Jonathan Bailey. Despite widespread concern and commentary over her appearance in the new music video \u201cPetal,\u201d the singer has not specified a reason for her temporary career break beyond noting that \u201cboundaries, they need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watch the Maher segment below. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The White House released a new wave of UFO files. Sightings include a triangular craft in the sky, high-speed orbs near an army base, and a stick-like figure with large eyes, but that was just Ariana Grande. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/buBBGk2Ze4\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/buBBGk2Ze4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bill Maher (@billmaher) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/billmaher\/status\/2085926015193477317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">August 8, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Too soon, too tasteless or just too cruel, take your pick, but Bill Maher\u2018s two Ariana Grande weight jokes during his opening monologue on Friday\u2019s Real Time With Bill Maher were met with mixed audience reactions. Maher sidled up to the subject by recapping some of the bad news of the week, then saying, \u201cI&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-08-at-8.41.35-AM.png?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}