Ice Cube to Maher: 'That's Our Word Now'

Bill Maher got a scolding from Ice Cube in his first show since he dropped the N-bomb on air, the Daily Beast reports. "It's a word that has been used against us; it’s like a knife, man," the rapper-turned-actor told Maher on Friday night's Real Time. (See video here.) "What made you think it was cool to say that?" he asked, to which Maher replied: "I just explained there was no thought put into it. And it was wrong. And I apologize. And you know, more than that I can’t do." Ice Cube said he accepted the apology, but pressed the issue.

"We need to get to the root of the psyche," he said, and explained that the slur has "been used as a weapon against us by white people, and we’re not gonna let that happen again by nobody. … That’s our word now. And you can’t have it back." Earlier, Maher got a standing O from the audience, per Deadline Hollywood. He told his first guest, the author Michael Eric Dyson, "I wanted you to come by here because I want you to school me. ... I did a bad thing.” Dyson told him, "That’s a great place to begin, Bill." Maher said the word "brought pain to people. … I'm not here to do that. I reiterate tonight, and that’s sincere. I’m not that big of an ass----." (Al Franken was originally supposed to appear, but he canceled.)