Louis C.K. made his return to television after eight years away.
The standup, 58, had seen his career derailed in 2017 after admitting to sexual misconduct allegations. Yet, C.K. appeared on Friday night’s episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” to promote his upcoming book, “Ingram: A Novel.”
C.K. was introduced to a standing ovation. “I think I’ll let that standing ovation speak for itself,” Maher, 69 said.
The pair discussed C.K.’s book, with the political commentator explaining that the main character, Ingram, discovers masturbation, and “kind of pays a high price for that.”
“Where do you get your ideas?” Maher then inquired, to which C.K. and the audience break out in a fit of laughter.
“Like you said, write what you know,” the author slyly responded.
In 2017, five women accused C.K. of masturbating in front of them, and he admitted the allegations were true.
C.K. continued to perform his standup act following his admission and in 2022, he won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
However, C.K. has kept a low profile in the years since.
Now, the comedian is on the lineup at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia, which has been blasted in recent days by fellow comedians who consider the show payoffs as blood money.
But C.K. said he agreed to go because “comedy is a great way to get in and start talking.”
“I love standup comedy, and I love comedians,” he told Maher, “so the fact that that’s opening up and starting to bud, I want to see it, I want to be part of it.”
The talk show host, meanwhile, has been a staunch supporter of C.K. and defended him in the past.
While on an episode of Kara Swisher’s “On” podcast last year, Maher asked, “Do we have to punish him for the whole rest of his life?”
Last month, C.K. reflected on the sexual misconduct allegations while on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast.
He admitted that he “felt free” in 2017 after the allegations came to light.
“When life f–ks it up for you, when it gets torn up, it’s a relief,” he expressed. “That’s why I felt free, because I had tried to manage these problems I had inside of me for so many years.”
“I tried to feel like I was a normal person. Or that I was what I thought of as a good person, but I was doing s–t in the background of my life that I was ashamed of,” the “Louie” creator continued. “I was hurting other people and trying to tell myself I wasn’t.”
C.K. added: “Those things on the edge, like using another person but you got their permission first, you’re still using another person. You’re not being with them, you’re using them. That took me a long time to learn about that stuff. “
“All of that is, like, you can’t manage it. And so when you’re in front of the world and that’s going on inside of you, it’s real hell,” he added.
Eight years ago, the New York Times published an exposé where the five women came forward.
“These stories are true,” C.K. confessed at the time. “At the time, I said to myself that what I did was OK because I never showed a woman my d–k without asking first, which is also true.”
“The power I had over these women is that they admired me,” he added. “And I wielded that power irresponsibly.”
FX, Netflix, Showtime and HBO all cut ties with C.K. In 2019, he joked that he lost an estimated $35 million in income due to the scandal.
While on Von’s podcast, C.K. said that in hindsight he views the scandal as “a beautiful thing.”
“I look at that as, like, God’s hands, or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “That was just like a good, caring thing that said, ‘Dude, you need to stop. You need to stop. You need out of all this.’ “
C.K. has also been vocal about sharing his story in Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meetings to help others.
“When I go to a meeting in person and there’s a guy who’s really hurting, his life’s f–ked up and I approach him and he’s not sure about being in this program,” he said. “He goes, ‘Oh, I ruined my life.’ And I go, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah.’ And I go, ‘I’m doing pretty good, buddy.’ “
“The fact that my wreckage can be a mountain for folks to lean on, take a little load off — that’s a beautiful gift,” noted C.K..
“I really wish I could have a simple kind of watershed where I can say just ‘Yes’ to everything that happened, and I’m sorry,” he told Von. “I really am. And I’m just trying to do better, and I don’t think I can prove that to everybody, ’cause it’s a private thing. It’s a one-to-one man thing. It’s not a famous guy act.”
