Louis C.K., Jay Leno and Stephen A. Smith. Rich Fury/Getty Images, Paul Morigi/Getty Images, Paul Morigi/Getty Images Standup comedian Louis C.K., former late night talk show host Jay Leno and TV commentator Stephen A. Smith are among the big names who will participate in the celebration of Bill Maher when the veteran stand-up comedian and TV talk show host receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, June 28, The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively report.
Others set to participate in the ceremony in Washington, D.C., which will be filmed for subsequent streaming on Netflix, include standup comedian Whitney Cummings, actor Woody Harrelson, media mogul Arianna Huffington and singer/songwriter John Mellencamp, all of whom are regular guests on Maher’s HBO program Real Time with Bill Maher.
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The Mark Twain Prize, named after the 19th century writer who was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was created in 1998 to annually honor one of the world’s great humorists. Previous recipients include 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Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009, rescinded in 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013) Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David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).
Maher, who specializes in social and political commentary in his standup routine and on Real Time (which he has hosted since 2003), is a polarizing figure at the moment, having angered both Pres. Donald Trump and much of the left with his acerbic criticisms of the current White House and the “woke,” respectively.
Trump, who has long been a target of Maher’s jokes and sued Maher for $5 million in 2013 over one particular crack, hosted the comedian for dinner at the White House in April 2025. But their detente did not last long, as Maher continued to joke about Trump, prompting Trump to opine that the comedian is “a highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT” and to describe the dinner as a “waste of time.”
Back in March 2026, Trump, not long after attempting to rename the Kennedy Center as the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, expressed, via spokespeople, displeasure with the establishment’s selection of Maher for the Mark Twain Prize. On May 29, a federal judge ordered that Trump’s name must be removed from the establishment’s outdoor and indoor signage by June 12.
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