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Bill Maher has said that he and Larry David are no longer friends amid a falling-out over politics.
Earlier this year, David, the creator of the acclaimed sitcoms Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, wrote a satirical essay critiquing Maher’s meeting with US president Donald Trump, titled “My Dinner with Adolf”.
During a new interview with The Free Press’s Maya Sulkin this week, Maher, 69, was asked if his public positions had “costed [sic] you invites, friends, [or] anything of that nature”.
“F*** yeah,” he said. “I mean, Larry David certainly is not really my friend anymore.” He said that they did not speak after the essay was published.
“I said my piece on my last show,” Maher added, referring to a November episode of his series Real Time.
Asked if he was “surprised” by David’s editorial, Maher replied: “Yeah… but it was a great clapback.”
Maher met with Trump in April, after which he controversially praised the president, describing him as “gracious” and “measured”.
Bill Maher (left) and Larry David (right) (Club Random/Getty)
David’s piece, written from the imagined perspective of a writer meeting Adolf Hitler in 1939, mocked Maher’s comments about Trump.
In November, Maher defended his meeting with Trump and hit out at David’s essay.
“The people who got all butt-hurt because I had dinner with [Trump]. You know, ’cause he’s Hitler. Except he’s not,” Maher said. “So unhelpful and dumb. … Every year, I used to ask Larry David to do Real Time and he’d always say, ‘Bill, I can’t, I’m not smart enough about politics to do your show.’ Yeah, I get that now.”
He claimed that critics of Trump who refuse to engage with the much-criticised US leader are “not serious people”.
“What exactly is the argument?” he asked. “That by talking to Trump I’ll elevate him? Oh my God, don’t tell me he could become president.”
David, 78 has been a longtime critic of Trump, and lampooned his fanbase on an episode of the self-parodic comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm.