Though Maher has since apologized, he’s one of many White people who feel the n-word is fair use. Unfortunately, Maher doesn’t use it while singing along to rap lyrics or as a greeting to his Black friends.
He uses it as a slur.
Back in 2007, Maher’s ex-girlfriend Karrine “Superhead” Steffans says Bill used her race to insult her during arguments, making fun of how big her butt was and calling her “ghetto”:
“Bill wants someone he can put down in an argument, tell you how ghetto you are, how big your butt is, and that you’re an idiot. That’s why you never see him with a white girl or an intellectual. I might as well have been a Muslim woman with my head wrapped, walking 10 paces behind my man. [But] I couldn’t be ‘Bill Maher’s girlfriend’ any more – not when I’m Karrine Steffans . . . best-selling author.”