The Kennedy Center will present the 27th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to Bill Maher.
The announcement comes one week after members of the Trump administration said the Atlantic’s report that Maher was the recipient was “fake news.”
“This is fake news. Bill Maher will not receive this award,” White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said at the time.
“Literally fake news,” White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung said.
The Kennedy Center confirmed on Thursday that Maher had won the ceremony, scheduled for June 28 at the Arts Foundation. The show will premiere exclusively on Netflix, with a broadcast date to be announced.
The Kennedy Center’s public financial records as of fiscal year 2024 confirm how the award is a revenue driver, thanks to its institutional sponsorship and streaming deal with Netflix. Filings show the center recorded receipts for $5.2 million from the Mark Twain Prize.
The Mark Twain Award for American Humor honors individuals who have influenced American society in the same way that Mark Twain did.
Maher has hosted “Real Time” on HBO for more than 20 years, about a decade after hosting “Politically Incorrect” on Comedy Central and ABC. He has received 42 Emmy Award nominations and won his first Emmy Award in 2014 as executive producer of the HBO series. Deputy.
“For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Award has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy,” said Roma Dharavi, vice president of public relations.. “For the longest time, Bill has been influencing American discourse — one politically incorrect joke at a time.”
“Thanks to the Mark Twain staff: You just explained the award to me, and it sounds like an Emmy, except I won,” Maher said. “I would just say it’s really humbling to have anything named after a guy who was kicked out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”
Previous winners of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Award are Richard Pryor (1998), Jonathan Winters (1999), Carl Reiner (2000), Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009; canceled in 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013), Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David Letterman (2017), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2018), Dave Chappelle (2019), Jon Stewart (2022), Adam Sandler (2023), Kevin Hart (2024), and Conan O’Brien (2025).
