{"id":513854,"date":"2026-06-23T06:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/513854\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T06:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:17:21","slug":"louis-c-k-stephen-a-smith-to-honor-bill-maher-at-kennedy-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/513854\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis C.K., Stephen A. Smith to Honor Bill Maher at Kennedy Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoring Bill Maher will air on Netflix on July 21, the Kennedy Center<\/a> announced Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNewly announced guests for the programming include Louis C.K., Whitney Cummings, Woody Harrelson, Arianna Huffington, Jay Leno, John Mellencamp and Stephen A. Smith. The gala performance itself is scheduled to take place June 28 in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are delighted to once again partner with Netflix to bring the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor \u2014 the nation\u2019s\u202fmost prestigious comedy honor \u2014 to audiences everywhere,\u201d said Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations at the Kennedy Center. \u201cComedy fans will have a front-row seat to an evening\u202fof comedic candor,\u202fnot to be missed.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe event has already attracted controversy. The Kennedy Center announced Maher <\/a>as the recipient after members of Trump\u2019s administration said a report in The Atlantic, stating that Maher would be the recipient, was \u201cfake news.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Kennedy Center itself has also been at the center of the controversy. After President Donald Trump appointed himself as chairman of the center, and appointed his own board members, the board voted to add Trump\u2019s name to the Kennedy Center title. However, a judge ruled in May<\/a> that the Kennedy Center must remove Trump\u2019s name from the building, given that the center had been designated as a memorial to the late President by Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mark Twain ceremony was initially meant to be the last scheduled event before a two-year closure of the center for renovations, according to the Kennedy Center. (The Center has also lost a number of scheduled concerts and artists, after Trump\u2019s takeover of the institution). However, the same judge blocked the plans to close the center. On Monday, executives said the plan is for the Kennedy Center to remain open, for now, but acts are not being booked at this time, according to The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoring Bill Maher will air on Netflix on July 21, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,16720,282],"class_list":["post-513854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kennedy-center","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}