For comedians who also host shows, this is how they pay their bills. Stand-up is what they live off, and they can hopefully save every penny of their salary. That’s what Jay Leno did: he saved almost every cent of his Tonight Show paycheck, but made sure to do x-amount of shows every year for everyday bills. It makes sense, as the maintenance for all the classic cars likely isn’t cheap.
For Bill Maher, host of HBO’s Real Time, he too does stand-up, at times taking off from his show to do a series of gigs nationwide. Yet, given the political climate, where he’s hated on both sides, he admitted he doesn’t do much stand-up comedy anymore due to the crazies. Of course, he takes a ‘both sides’ issue, but let’s be honest. Given the track record, it would be a leftist who would attack Bill for making fun of the Left’s illiberal obsession with making everyone transgender (via Real Clear Politics):
Bill Maher quit stand-up over concerns he might get shot because of politics https://t.co/pHD7odOu6G pic.twitter.com/WBjGbzYYY2
— New York Post (@nypost) November 18, 2025
HBO host Bill Maher, on his podcast "Club Random," told guest comedian Patton Oswalt that he does not plan to return to stand-up comedy anytime soon due to the political atmosphere.
"I don’t want to be out there in this country, in this political atmosphere," Maher said. "I could get shot by the left or the right."
"It's a good time to not be out there," Maher added. "I just got tired of being twice as funny as people who were selling twice as many tickets as me."
The man earns a good chunk of coin doing Real Time anyway.