The 'Real Time with Bill Maher' host thinks Food Network shouldn't drop the 'Paula's Best Dishes' star, asking his guests, 'Do we always have to make people go away?'
- Jun 24, 2013
AceShowbiz - Paula Deen finds an unlikely defender in Bill Maher amidst controversy of her admission of using N-word and making racial joke. The queen of Southern cooking was defended by the "Real Time with Bill Maher" during a discussion this past weekend.
"This may have been a shakedown," Maher said to his guests. "People may have been trying to shake her down, that happens all the time, so I'm not sure what the original charge is. But she did admit to using the n-word, so the Food Network cut her off..."
"If you're 66 years old, and you were raised in Georgia, and you were a child before the civil rights movement, do you get a bit of a pass?" the HBO presenter rhetorically asked, to which his guests Bob Herbert, who's black, quickly cut in, "No."
"..Or you say no, you've had 40 years to get used to, I agree," Maher responded, before adding, "I also think people shouldn't have to lose their shows and go away when they do something bad. It's just a word, it's a wrong word, she's wrong to use it, but do we always have to make people go away?"
"For me that word is the line...nobody should be using that word," Herbert replied, prompting Maher to ask if "we should ban rap records," which was widely known for heavily laced with the slur. "You've gotta be a free country, even to be an a**hole," Maher added.
During the argument, another guest Michael Pollan drew chuckle as he quipped at one point, "It's really a loss because she's had such a positive effect on the American diet," referring to Deen's tendency to make fatty home-cooking recipes despite her admission that she had diabetes.
