American comedian and writer Bill Maher has been hit with criticisms after a rather controversial take on the Me Too movement and Cassie Ventura’s relationship with Diddy as she testifies against him at trial. Many have suggested that his take on the situation is victim blaming.

In a monologue on an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher he started off with outlining his position that Diddy is a ‘bad dude’, but things spiralled from there.

‘We need to keep two thoughts in our head at the same time: One, Diddy is a bad dude – really bad. Like, the worst thing in rap since Hammer pants.’

Things got complicated when he suggested that if a victim is being abused, there should be a rule that ‘you’ve got to leave right away’, not considering in any way the complexities and fear that can come with leaving an abuser.

‘Things have changed enough that moving forward, the rule should be, if you’re being abused, you’ve got to leave right away,’ he said.

He suggested that if Diddy were to end up walking free, it could be due to the fact that Ventura’s messages were ‘expressing what’s often called enthusiastic consent to their sex life.’

‘If Diddy walks free, it will be because his lawyers can point to an endless stream of texts from Cassie expressing what’s often called ‘enthusiastic consent’ to their sex life,’ Maher said, trivialising the situation further by using ‘Me Too’ as a verb when suggesting Ventura’s allegations hold less weight because he continued to be in contact with Diddy after and during his abuse.

‘If you’re ‘MeToo-ing’ someone, it’s not helpful to your case if you text him, ‘me too!”

He continued to argue about the existence of a woman’s assumed ‘agency’ to leave an abusive relationship.‘Your only contemporaneous notes about what he did should be the police report,’ he said. ‘It’s not victim shaming to expect women to have the agency to leave toxic relationships. Quite the contrary, to not expect that is infantilising them.’

Next, he suggested that a victim’s reason to stay in an abusive relationship may be due to the ‘allure’ of being a star. ‘I get it. Part of the allure of the music industry is you wanna be a star,’ he said. ‘And music is, to begin with, highly sexualised.

‘I understand why it can be difficult for women to leave an abusive relationship, but this should be society’s new grand bargain,’ Maher said. ‘We take every allegation seriously, but don’t tell me anymore about your contemporaneous account that you said to two friends ten years ago.

‘Tell the police right away. Don’t wait a decade. Don’t journal about it. Don’t turn it into a one-woman show. And most importantly, don’t keep f***ing him. Your only contemporaneous notes about what he did should be a police report.’

Where do we begin with this? The fact that a woman isn’t always physically or emotionally able to report their abuse? How insulting this situation being described as a ‘one-women show’ is? And the total ignorance of the complexity and danger that may come from witholding sex from an abuser? We could go on.

Maher seems to be under the impression that all institutions listen to women when they report such abuse.

‘We’re not in the ‘no one listens to women or takes them seriously’ era anymore. Operators are actually standing by to take your calls,’ he said.

Maher proposed a ‘new rule,’ that ‘if you’re being abused, you’ve got to leave right way,’ applying this rule to Ventura and continued with his theories about women who face abuse wanting to get ‘something out of it’, such as fame.

‘When women felt, for good reason, that ‘OG predators’ like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein would never be held accountable, why not at least get something out of it?’ he said.

‘It was not illogical for an abused women to say, ‘Well, if I can’t get justice for my pain, can I at least get a receipt? A coupon?” he continued, suggesting that Ventura was in some way advancing her career from their relationship.

He then went on to argue that having an ‘honest conversation about abuse’ must also include the realities of ‘what people are willing to do for stardom’.

‘If you want a No.1 record so bad, you’ll take a No.1 in the face, some of that is on you,’ Maher said.

‘And if you’re doing it for love, well, c’mon, Oprah and Dr. Phil and every podcaster in the world by now have done a million shows about ‘abuse is not love’ and ‘abusers don’t change.’’

Maher wasn’t done. He then went on to draw comparisons between the case and Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship, including suggesting if Turner was able to ‘get away’, then this ability should apply to all abused women. He said: ‘R&B singer Ike Turner was a psycho, just like Diddy. But in an era when there was no movement to help her, Tina Turner somehow got away and she did it with 36 cents in her pocket and a mobile card.’

While some have come to Maher’s defence to speculate whether Ventura stayed with Diddy in their relationship ‘for fame and fortune’, others have hit back at Maher for his lack of understanding when it comes to the complexities of leaving an abuser. 

One wrote: ‘@billmaher showing his true colors with his acceptance of the psychological warfare and terror of controlling abusive men in the industry and beyond, but especially if you have a lot of money to contribute to the @DNC.’

Another posted: ‘Obviously he has no clue how a victim can be mentally manipulated…’ while one wrote: ‘Cassie was groomed at a young age; then she was dragged into a culture she was drowning in with no sign of getting out by a complete monster who terrified everyone around him.’

Another commenter called Maher’s words ‘insanely ignorant’. ‘We have seen in the video that she tried to leave… yes women will be believed way faster than in the past, but still the abuse is not black and white,” they wrote.

‘Floored by people who do not understand abusive relationships,’ one critic wrote. ‘You don’t know what was actually going on. To say she stayed for the money is probably the cruelest thing to say. Bill Maher is just a jerk’.

Clearly we’ve got a long way to go when it comes to a powerful man’s understanding of abuse and violence against women and girls.