Bill Maher blames ‘woke’ Hollywood for why he’ll never win another Emmy

Maher was joined by Train Dreams star Joel Edgerton, who had also been nominated for a Globe.

Connecting over their shared nominations, Edgerton asked: “How do you feel going in? To me — and maybe it’s because I’ve always set my ceiling quite low in life. Like, being nominated to me is a win.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve been nominated for 33 Emmys, and they would never give it to me,” Maher responded. “That’s not a gag number. That’s a real number. It’s crazy.”

According to the Emmys website, Maher has received a total of 42 nominations throughout his career, winning once in 2014 as an executive producer on HBO’s VICE docuseries. Thirty of those nominations have come from his work on his eight-season talk show, Politically Incorrect, which ran from 1993 to 2002, and his ongoing HBO Max talk show, Real Time with Bill Maher.

“Obviously, it’s something I said. Well, it’s everything I said,” he later joked. “Because I speak freely. And this woke town f***ing hates that. And that’s okay. I’ve made my peace with that.”

If by “some miracle,” he received an Emmy, he said: “I really should be shocked.”

Maher, who identifies as a Democrat, has previously explained that he uses the word “woke” in place of progressive.

“I know that word triggers a lot of people,” he said of the term on a July 2025 episode of Real Time, “because it had a great beginning as a meaning, but words migrate, and it went to something else.

“I think there’s a difference between an old-school liberal and a woke person,” he added.

Over the years, Maher has repeatedly found himself in hot water for making controversial comments on politics, religion, race and culture.

Just last week, the TV host railed against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in Hollywood on his Club Random podcast.

Speaking to actor Tim Allen, Maher said diversity on television is a “great virtue,” but noted that it’s not the only one.

“Not everything in America has to look like Angelina Jolie’s Christmas card, you know, sometimes, and it’s always okay in reverse,” he said, referencing Jolie being the adoptive mother of children from Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Vietnam, as well as of her biological children with Brad Pitt.

“I love people of color, and I’m so glad that things are better than they used to be for people of color, but you know, it shouldn’t intrude on the creative process to the degree it has in this town,” Maher continued. “It has intruded on the creative process. And by the way, lots of people of color agree with that because they want the creative process to be pure, too.”