Bill Maher Reflected on Matthew Perry’s Death on This Week’s “Real Time”

A little less than two years ago, Matthew Perry joined Bill Maher on the set of Real Time for a candid conversation about Perry’s own struggles with addiction and his memoir about his career. It was a memorable interview, both for what Perry was saying and for Maher’s admiration for Perry’s onscreen work and his belief that that the best parts of Perry’s career were still to come.

Sadly, that prediction would prove inaccurate. Eleven months after his Real Time appearance, Perry died; in the months since then, more and more details have emerged about just how this happened. And on this week’s Real Time, Maher closed out the episode with a segment that both channeled his anger at the death of his friend with his frustrations with the medical establishment — something that’s something of a running theme for Maher.

“Doctors have killed more rock stars than twin-engine planes,” Maher said, pointing to the deaths of Prince, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Tom Petty. He went on to cite an even more alarming figure: the billions of pills prescribed that have led to overdoses.

Maher went on to point to pop culture depictions of doctors. “If doctors really were so infallible, why are there so many shows about an eccentric genius doctor constantly proving all the other doctors are idiots?” he asked — and then went on to riff on pharmaceutical ads on TV and the implications of the phrase “ask your doctor” in said ads.

Eventually, Maher returned to a more specific topic: the details that have emerged on Matthew Perry’s death. “Matthew and I weren’t super-close, but he was enough of a friend — and enough of a good guy — to make me very angry when I read about all his enablers,” Maher said. He went on to discuss Perry’s memoir and his position as an especially prominent celebrity who’d spoken about his addictions. “If that guy comes to you for help,” Maher said, “maybe don’t give him more drugs.”

He also reserved some of his ire for the growing phenomenon of ketamine prescribed online. He described this as “doctors prescribing dangerous substances to people they’ve never met over Zoom.” It was a fierier turn than Maher usually takes in these segments, but under the circumstances, it felt entirely understandable.

Other notable moments from the episode:

• Bill Maher: not a fan of “What would you do on day one?” questions to presidential candidates.
• Maher on former president Donald Trump: “Have you ever wondered what Donald Trump is like in real life? Tony Soprano without the introspection.”
• House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on her new book The Art of Power: “It’s a report on some things. I’ll do a memoir later.”
• Maher on George W. Bush: “I was probably too hard [on him].”
• Pelosi struck a few bipartisan chords in her interview, saying, “I think that it’s necessary for our country for us to move in a unified direction — to take us back to a place where we disagreed, but we were patriotic and loved our country.” She went on to praise Reagan’s farewell address on immigration and Theodore Roosevelt’s allusions to “the arena.”
• The New York Times’ John McWhorter and Puck’s Peter Hamby joined Maher for the panel discussion. McWhorter’s background in language led to a few insightful takes on how candidates speak on the trail: “It’s a kind of music, and you have to listen to it in that way.”
• The trio also discussed the arrest of Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov. Maher on Musk’s Twitter: “This is a bathroom wall, and it’s not my job to clean it.” Hamby pointed out that the Durov address went beyond a simple free speech issue. “There’s a grey area.”
• For the record, both Hamby and Maher are of the opinion that Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
• Maher on the child who accidentally broke an ancient pot in a museum: “Don’t drag a four-year-old to a museum and make him look at decorative pots. Let him break decorative pots where all the other kids do it — at Marshall’s.”
• Bill Maher is baffled by the existence of mayonnaise-themed perfume. He is not alone in this.