In a lengthy “New Rules” segment on Friday on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the talk show host spoke with Chappell Roan, addressing an open letter to the singer and her political statements.
“New rule for the anniversary of October 7: We must launch a campaign to educate young Americans about the Middle East,” he began. He went on to say that Roan does not seem to understand that despite her support for Palestine, she would be in danger in the Middle East. “Chappell, if you think it was repressive to grow up queer in the Midwest, try the Middle East. You’re a female drag queen and you sing, “I fucked you in the bathroom when we went to your parents’ house for dinner.” That wouldn’t fly in Gaza, although it would, right off a roof.
“You are not wrong to say that oppression is bad, or that Palestinian and many other Muslim populations are oppressed and deserve to be set free,” he explained. “You just have a completely backwards story about who is carrying out the oppression. Hamas is a terrorist mafia that has taken over Gaza…Are you sure this is the one you want to throw down?’
Maher said it was understandable that young people might be misinformed, given the state of education. “You don’t know a lot of history,” he said, describing himself as someone who didn’t learn history from TikTok.
He started the segment by explaining to his older viewers who the “Pink Pony Club” artist is. Chappell Roan is “not the name of one of Trump’s golf courses — she’s actually a great new artist who’s really blowing up like a Hezbollah pageant. In just a few months, she went from a struggling artist to 3 billion plays on Spotify, earning her almost 11 cents,” Maher joked.
“As we arrive in Israel – and in Chappell, we must put your promise here to the test to think critically and ask yourself whether what you read on social media is true, because it is not. There is a whole history of the Middle East that you and your fans had never heard of,” Maher claimed.
“I know you are moved when you see the dead Palestinian bodies, but it is strange that your generation did not seem nearly as moved by the Jewish bodies on October 7. You killed at Coachella this year, but like Hamas at a music festival, it’s something completely different. Doesn’t the sight of so many young women being raped at a music festival make it a little personal?” Maher wondered.
“You are advocating for a place and a culture where you would never want to live. Gender may not be binary, but right and wrong are,” he concluded.
Roan stirred up the controversy a few weeks ago by posting a Tiktok message in which he said: ‘I don’t like what’s happening with policy, for example. Fuck the policies on the right, but honestly, fuck some of the policies on the left. That’s why I can’t endorse it.” She later made it clear that she would vote for Kamala Harris, but would not support her.
Earlier this year, she declined an invitation to the White House Pride Celebration, where she had considered reading a poem by Palestinian women, in protest of the U.S. government’s support for Israel.
Watch the clip below: