Bill Maher went after Bella Thorne on his podcast “Club Random” yesterday, picking on the actress for opening up about her anxiety.
After pouring himself a drink at the jump, Maher seemed to spend the rest of the episode slurring his words, even interrupting Thorne as she attempted to explain her struggles with mental health and family upbringing.
The discrepancy began when Thorne opened up about how she “fell into weed” as a result of her anxiety, which immediately agitated Maher. “What is it with you kids and anxiety?” he questioned. “What is causing all the anxiety?”
Though Thorne attempted to explain that there’s “constant bad, bad, bad everywhere you look,” Maher wasn’t having it. He argued with the actress, saying it was a “disingenuous argument” and that her generation “doesn’t know what’s going on in the world.”
“So how can you be that fucking concerned about what’s going on in the world?” Maher said. “I know what’s going on in the world! I should have the anxiety! I follow it, you kids don’t follow it. You don’t know what the fuck is going on in the world! What are you upset about?”
Later on, he told Thorne that young kids need to get off social media—that’s where the anxiety (and apparently, cancellation) comes from. The real kicker, though, came when Maher continued to blast Thorne’s anxiety even after she had opened up about her father’s death and other childhood trauma.
“I think a lot of the people who are the most anxious have the most privileged lives,” Maher said, prompting a ‘hm’ of disapproval from Thorne. “Look at your life! Everybody wants it. Everybody wants to be you.”
The pair were talking about young people ignoring certain major events in the world (i.e. Ukraine, COVID, environmental disasters) in order to prioritize their own mental health.
“I don’t know, I think that’s a very narrow kind of mindset in the way of trauma,” Thorne said, defending herself. “Everyone really has their trauma. What’s happening in Ukraine is unspeakable—that is something else. But as far as trauma for every human being, I lost my dad when I was eight. I was molested growing up.”
“Molested!” Maher shot back, shocked.
But Thorne was still ready to have a more sobered-up conversation about the real root of her anxiety.
“Yeah. I went through shit, everybody goes through shit,” she said. “When you look at a book, and you judge it by its cover, and you say, ‘Oh, you know.’"
Even though Maher tried to clarify he wasn’t “judging at all,” Thorne still tried to put the whole thing into perspective for the Real Time host.
“We look at someone and say, ‘Oh, they have it all. They must be so fuckin’ happy. You’ve got nothing to complain about in your life.’ Yeah, well, you know, they’re still with their therapist every day. They might have PTSD and traumas and other things that haunt their dreams.”
“Everyone, even on any platform at any time in anyone’s life, we do that as a society. We look at someone and say, ‘Oh, they have it all. They must be so fuckin’ happy. You’ve got nothing to complain about in your life,’” she explained. “Yeah, well, you know, they’re still with their therapist every day. They might have PTSD and traumas and other things that haunt their dreams.”
Again trying to backpedal, Maher admitted that molestation is “a serious problem.” Still, he refused to acknowledge any of Thorne’s (or young people’s) further problems with anxiety.
“Death in the family—it’s so hard to grow up without a father, holy shit I could not even tell you how hard it is,” Thorne said. “So hard.”
Over and over again, Maher attempted to assist Thorne by telling her: “You don’t have to be sad.” Have therapists tried this one out yet?
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