UPDATE (June 22): If you won’t be in Washington, D.C. on Sunday (June 28) when Bill Maher receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, fear not: Netflix will premiere the program on July 21. The streamer has been the exclusive broadcast partner of the Mark Twain Prize since 2024.
John Mellencamp is set to appear at the gala, along with Louis C.K., Whitney Cummings, Woody Harrelson, Arianna Huffington, Jay Leno, Stephen A. Smith and others. Grammy-winning producer and composer Cheche Alara will serve as music director.
The show will be held at the John F. Kennedy for the Performing Arts. Donald J. Trump’s name was officially part of the name of the building when Maher’s award was announced in April, but it was ordered removed by a federal judge on May 29.
PREVIOUSLY (April 6): Bill Maher is set to receive the 2026 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a June 28 gala in the concert hall of The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, the official name (at least for now) of the cultural landmark in Washington, D.C.
Maher will be the 27th recipient of the award; the first since board voted on Dec. 18 to adopt the new name. The program will stream exclusively on Netflix for the third consecutive year on a date to be announced.
“Thank you to the Mark Twain people: I just had the award explained to me, and apparently it’s like an Emmy, except I win,” Maher said in a statement. “I’d just like to say that it is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”
As his quip implies, Maher has indeed lost dozens of times at the Primetime Emmys. He has received 42 nominations over the years but has won just once – as an executive producer of the HBO series Vice. He lost 11 times for his breakout series Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher and an astounding 19 times for the subsequent Real Time With Bill Maher.
In addition to his 42 Primetime Emmy nods, Maher has received two Grammy nods, both for the audiobooks of two of his best-selling books. He was nominated for best spoken word album for When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden in 2004 and New Rules – Polite Musings From a Timid Observer in 2007. He lost both times.
Maher, 70, will be the oldest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize since David Letterman, who was also 70 when he was honored in 2017. The oldest-ever recipient was Carol Burnett, who was 80 when she was honored in 2013.
The June 28 event is being held more than three months later in the calendar year than last year’s presentation to Conan O’Brien, which was held on March 23, 2025. The event will be held in the same venue – only the name has been changed.
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor recognizes individuals who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, colloquially known as Mark Twain. Previous recipients 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; rescinded 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). The event was created by Bob Kaminsky, Peter Kaminsky, Mark Krantz, and John Schreiber.
Maher was born in New York City and raised in River Vale, N.J. He launched his career as a stand-up comedian in 1979. In 2022, Maher launched a new podcast, Club Random With Bill Maher. He has done 13 solo specials for HBO including last year’s Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This? The special was nominated for a Golden Globe for best performance in stand-up comedy on television, but (as per usual for Maher at award shows), it lost.
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