After he called President Barack Obama “my nigga” at his very last White House Correspondents’ Dinner, we knew Larry Wilmore had less than zero fucks to give about respectability politics or not speaking his black-ass mind.
And so it was when Wilmore, executive producer of Black-ish and co-creator of HBO’s Insecure, was a guest on Real Time With Bill Maher Friday night and told alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos to go “fuck himself.” Two times. The exchange happened on the “Overtime” segment, which aired exclusively online.
And yet Wilmore wasn’t just profane; he was also (unlike Maher, who seemed to be having a love fest with Milo) lucid AF.
During the discussion, Yiannopoulos intentionally referred to a former transgender student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as “he.”
“I did it on purpose. I misgendered this person,” said Yiannopoulos. “I think women and girls should be protected from having men who are confused about their sexual identities from their bathrooms.”
“That’s not unreasonable,” said Maher (insert eye-rolling emoji here).
Wilmore wasn’t having it, though. “I just think it’s sad, because the same arguments that were used against gay people, treating them like aliens who wanted to fuck anything that moved and that’s why we should avoid them at all costs, are being used [against the trans community].”
He continued, “No, It’s terrible. There’s a difference without a distinction, because it’s using the type of arguments. It’s like when people try to compare gay and black. Yeah, they’re not the same thing. We shared invisibility. People didn’t see us in society, and gay people hid out from society, but there were a lot of the same issues that you have to deal with when you’re marginalized.”
Another African-American guest, former U.S. Navy officer and cryptology expert Malcolm Nance, got in on the action, coming for the way Yiannopoulos was dressed (he was draped in pearls), saying, “When you were talking about people being confused, were you talking about you? ... Because I’ve been to Port Said in Naples, and you look like you’ve been there a few times,” an obvious dig at Yiannopoulos’ sexuality.
The comments flew back and forth, with messy Milo trying and failing to be clever and eventually saying to Maher: “You always invite such awful people on your show! They’re so stupid!”
Which is when Wilmore went in.
“First of all, hold on, Bill: You can go fuck yourself,” Wilmore said to Yiannopoulos. “If your argument is that these people are stupid, you didn’t hear a word [Nance] said earlier in the segment, because he can talk circles around your pathetic, douchey little ass from England, all right?”
All right.
In July, Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter for stalking and viciously harassing Saturday Night Live player Leslie Jones. He is currently a Breitbart News editor with a nice, controversial book deal in play. He also became the face of the suppression of “free speech” when his talk at UC Berkeley was canceled after violence broke out and President Donald Trump threatened to cut federal funding to the school.
Speaking of Jones, Wilmore got one in for her, too. “And Leslie Jones is not ‘barely literate,’” said Wilmore. “Go fuck yourself again for that one, OK?”
OK!
For those who may have never seen Yiannopoulos or hear him speak, it’s interesting to note that he is an obviously gay man, who says he is Jewish and has a black boyfriend—as if his identities or bedmates preclude him from being a “douchey” douchebag who isn’t hateful toward black women, transgender people or Muslims. It doesn’t.
Watch the drama unfold: