Bill Maher hasn’t ever hidden the fact that he smokes pot, and in the latest episode of Max series “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” he emphasized that “like” isn’t a strong enough word for how he feels about the substance — “I love it.” As it turns out, there are three activities that Maher believes are essential to smoke before engaging in: performing stand-up comedy, writing and sex. That’s because he believes smoking marijuana is what makes him his best.
“People have different reactions to pot,” Maher said. “I would say the three main ones: It can make you paranoid. It can make you sleepy — a lot of people use it for sleep. Or it can make you high. That’s what we call it, ‘getting high.’”
“Some people are in that third category. It makes them better. Like, people think I’m a huge pothead who smokes all the time — I don’t. I don’t even smoke every day. I smoke situationally, when I want to be at my best at something,” he continued. Wallace jokingly asked if that meant he was high right then, but Maher dismissed the notion, quipping that he could handle Wallace without getting high.
In March, Maher sat down for an interview with Los Angeles Magazine while he was accidentally “very, very stoned” (an employee at a dispensary he has a minority stake in gave him a Black Mamba, which contains live resin and kief, followed by a CBD tonic that was supposed to help and did not). The host was “so high when we talk that he calls me two days later to finish all the thoughts he hadn’t completed.”
Maher made similar statements about his marijuana use in that interview. “I don’t smoke every day and never have,” he explained. “I’m a situational pot smoker. I would never get high to do ‘Real Time.’ I can do stand-up high because I don’t have to worry about a clock. I like it for sex. And I like it for writing.” While he doesn’t get high for hosting “Real Time,” that’s not to say, of course, that he doesn’t smoke while writing the show.
He also explained that while his show “Real Time” is completely planned out, his “Club Random” podcast is much more freewheeling — thanks to pot. “The producer, director and star of that show is marijuana. Marijuana’s going to take me where it’s going to take me,” Maher said.
Watch the clip with Wallace and Maher in the video above.
