Bill Maher Dismisses Bella Thorne’s Anxiety With Mansplain-y Rant: “What is it With You Kids and Anxiety?”

On the April 10 episode on Bill Maher’s podcast, Club Random with Bill Maher, the comedian and host of HBO‘s Real Time With Bill Maher was joined by guest Bella Thorne, and pretty much from the get-go, it was clear that this would be a clash of generational (and some ideological) differences. As spotted by Mediaite, within the first two minutes of the show, the 24 year-old Gen Z actress host presented 66 year-old Boomer host Maher with some cannabis because she’d been told that Maher, too, was a smoker.

“That rumor about me smoking?” Maher remarked dryly as he examined the shiny box containing Thorne’s own brand of cannabis, “Forbidden Flower.” When the host asked why it was forbidden, Thorne explained her inspiration as the negative stigma around weed, something she has been trying to fight against, as the substance has been a great help to her through medical issues and anxiety. That was all it took to set Maher off.

“What is it with you kids and anxiety? What is causing all the anxiety?”

When Thorne responded, “The world,” Maher oh so generously mansplained anxiety and who is and is not capable of truly having it, according to him, the all-knowing arbiter of people’s feelings.

“I find this to be a disingenuous argument because your generation doesn’t know what’s going on in the world,” he ranted. “So how can you be that fucking concern about what’s going on in the world? I know what’s going on in the world, I should have the anxiety. I follow it. You kids don’t follow it. You don’t know what the fuck’s going on in the world. What are you upset about?”

Again, this was within the first three minutes of the podcast. Quite the hot start. In response to Maher’s “Kids these days!” lecture, the former Disney actress didn’t really have much by way of an argument or defense, but still eventually responded “We’re seeing it, we’re hearing it, and we’re vocal about it,” while her host alternated between condescendingly chuckling and distractedly poking around his weed box.

From there, Maher swiftly moved on to complimenting Thorne’s “box of dope” before sliding in one more jab at Thorne’s anxiety and age group, saying that “This is probably where the anxiety’s coming from: hate.” But when Thorne agreed to the point about the destructiveness and stress of hate before tacking on, “in the world,” Maher was quick to shut her down.

“No, also the pettiness on social media. Your generation is just like fucking harpies on each other. I don’t know how you deal with it. Yeah, I would have anxiety too.”