Watch Ice Cube Check Bill Maher Over His N-Word Use on 'Real Time'

Photo of Bill Maher & Ice Cube courtesy of YouTube.

Last night was the first episode of Real Time with Bill Maher since the controversy.

Meaning, it was the first time Bill Maher got to publicly respond to last week's controversy, in which the comedian called himself a "house n*gga" during a conversation with Senator Ben Sasse.

Earlier in the week, Maher released a statement in which he apologized. Last night, he apologized again, telling guest, and friend, Michael Eric Dyson "I did a bad thing."

While the segment with Dyson was pretty good, Maher then had legendary rapper Ice Cube on the show.

And that's where the good stuff happened.

Bill Maher's Ex-Girlfriend Hints He Used The N-Word Frequently

Cube, who was also on the show promoting the rerelease of his masterpiece Death Certificate, let Maher have it in a gentle way. He started off by asking "what made you think you can say it," and Maher said it was an accident and he wasn't thinking, he just saw a cheap joke opportunity and he took it.

And then this happened:

“I accept your apology. 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 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.”

The stuff about having a "black girlfriend" who made him "some kool-aid" was clearly a swipe at Maher's history of dating black women. While all of this was going on, it was evident that Maher was getting annoyed being lectured to. At one point he said, "I think the people who are watching right now are saying: that point has been made.”

Has it though? Watch the segment below, it's definitely worth your time.