Ice Cube to Bill Maher: ‘I knew you were gonna f*ck up sooner or later’

In the wake of the backlash over his casual use of the N-word earlier this month, Real Time host Bill Maher invited iconic rapper Ice Cube on his show to give his perspective, and he didn’t go easy on Maher.

“I knew you was gonna fuck up sooner or later,” Cube told Maher. “I did. I did. I love your show, you’ve got a great show, but you’ve been buckin’ up against that line a little bit. You know, you’ve got a lot of black jokes. You know what I’m saying, you do.”

“Well, against racists, yes,” Maher responded.

“Sometimes you sound like a redneck trucker,” Cube said with a skeptical tone.

“No, I don’t. That I gotta push back on,” replied Maher.

“It’s my opinion,” Cube said. “My thing is this, and you know, I’m cool with you. I like your show, to be honest. I just wanna know two questions. What made you think it was cool to say that? That’s one question.”

“You know, I just explained there was no thought put into it. Obviously I was telling Dr. Dyson, comedians, they react. And it was wrong. And I apologize. And you know, more than that I can’t do,” Maher said.

I accept your apology,” Cube relented. “But I still think we need to get to the root of the psyche, because I think there’s a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they’re a little too familiar—or they think they too familiar—or its guys that, you know, might have a black girlfriend or two who made them some Kool-Aid every now and then, and they think they can cross the line. And they can’t. It’s a word that has been used against us; it’s like a knife, man. And you can use it as a weapon, or you can use it as a tool. It’s been used as a weapon against us by white people, and we’re not gonna let that happen again by nobody, because it’s not cool. Now, I know you heard [it], it’s in the lexicon and everybody’s talkin’, but that’s our word now. That’s our word now. And you can’t have it back. I know they’re tryin’ to get it back.”

On the June 2 edition of his show, Maher dropped the N-word during a discussion with Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) when Sasse told the host he’s welcome to come to Nebraska anytime and “work the fields.”

“Work in the fields?” Maher asked. “Senator, I’m a house nigga.”

Watch the full segment from June 9 in the video below, via Real Time with Bill Maher:

Featured image via screen grab

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.