Stephen King blasts Bill Maher for resuming HBO show amid WGA writers’ strike: ‘This is how strikes are broken’
Stephen King has criticized Bill Maher for rebooting his Real Time show without his writers amid the historic Hollywood strike.
As the strike action by writers and actors enters its fourth month, Maher controversially announced that his HBO talk show will launch a number of scaled-down episodes without the usual scripted segments.
The 67-year-old is the first late night talk show host to return after the WGA strike began on May 2, with the new season of his show kicking off on Friday, September 22 at 10pm – following a similar move from Drew’s daytime show Barrymore.
Maher made the announcement in a lengthy post on
The post drew criticism from thousands of Twitter users, including many who branded him a “scab” – while King accused him of being responsible for creating one of the first cracks in the strike wall.
Stephen King (right) has criticized Bill Maher (left) for restarting his Real Time show without his writers during the historic Hollywood strike.
Maher’s post drew criticism from thousands of Twitter users, including many who labeled him a “scab,” while King blamed him for creating one of the first cracks in the strike wall
The 67-year-old is the first late-night talk show host to return after the WGA strike began on May 2. (Image: Writers Guild Association workers strike in streets amid historic action)
The 75-year-old American fiction author retweeted Maher’s message, saying: “This is exactly how strikes are broken.”
Hundreds of thousands of workers, represented by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), are involved in the first double strike since 1960.
Now, more than four months after the action, unions are still at a standoff with the major studios asking them for better pay – meaning the majority of entertainment productions are still on hold and Hollywood is up to has been brought to a standstill.
While most shows remain on hiatus, Maher announced that Real Time is “unfortunately coming back, without writers or writing.”
“It’s been five months and it’s time to get people back to work,” he said on Twitter.
“The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and I hope they are addressed satisfactorily, but they are not the only people with issues, problems and concerns.
‘Despite some help from me, a large part of the staff is struggling. We were all hoping this would end after Labor Day, but that day has passed and still nothing seems to be happening.
“I love my writers, I’m one of them, but I’m not willing to lose a whole year and see so many people suffer so much at the bottom.”
‘Real Time is unfortunately coming back, without writers or writing. It’s been five months and it’s time to get people back to work,” Maher began his lengthy announcement
Announced: Bill Maher announced on social media Wednesday that his HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher will return without a writing staff.
Drew Barrymore also faced strong backlash for returning to her 9 a.m. show, including pulling out as host for the 74th National Book Awards.
Maher said he would “honor the spirit of the strike” by forgoing his usual monologue on the show, which will also air without the other written pieces he said he is “so proud of.”
He warned viewers that the new episodes “won’t be as good as our normal show,” but that the “off-the-cuff panel discussion” at the “heart of the show” will still take place, promising that it “won’t disappoint’.
The majority of social media users who responded to his announcement shared King’s views on the move, calling Maher a “scoundrel” for betraying the striking workers.
A minority of fans thanked him for bringing the program back, describing his decision as a “fair compromise.”
While Maher appeared to support the writers in his lengthy statement, he called some of the writers’ demands “crazy” on his Club Random podcast last week.
“What I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike is that it has really changed a lot from the 2007 strike, where they kind of believe that you make a living as a writer, and you don’t,” Maher said.
‘This is show business. This is the make-or-miss competition,” Maher continued, though he added, “I’m not saying they don’t have their points,” in line with their stance on streaming platforms reporting viewership data.
Meanwhile, Drew Barrymore has faced strong backlash for returning to her 9 a.m. show, including pulling out as host for the 74th National Book Awards.
“The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and I hope they are addressed satisfactorily, but they are not the only people with issues, problems and concerns,” Maher said as he announced the return of his HBO show to scaled version. shape down
The majority of shows have managed to maintain their hiatus in support of the strikes that have brought Hollywood to a standstill
She announced her decision to bring back her daytime talk show, despite previously walking away from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards in solidarity with the strike in May.
In a lengthy Instagram post, she said: ‘I chose to walk away from the MTV, Film and Television Awards because I was the presenter and it had a direct conflict with what the strike was about: studios, streamers , film, and television.
“It was also the first week of the strike and so I did what I thought was the right thing at the time to stand in solidarity with the writers.”
Barrymore, 48, went on to clarify that the third season of her eponymous show had actually wrapped on April 20, prior to the strike, so they never had to halt production.
She said she made the decision to return for season four because the show is “bigger than just me.”
The Drew Barrymore Show’s security team was on high alert when it resumed taping this month, kicking out two audience members for wearing WGA pins, illustrating the tensions surrounding the return.
The first episode of the resumed programming will air on September 18.