Eric Kripke Says Donald Trump Post Disrupted ‘Homelander as God’ Joke in ‘The Boys’

Eric Kripke, the creator of The Boys, says real-world events are starting to feel too close to what his show is trying to parody.

In a recent interview with Polygon, Kripke talked about how the latest season of the show ended up overlapping with real political moments again. He said it has become frustrating to see reality copy ideas from the series before they even air.

“I am really tired and weary of the world reflecting the show before we get a chance to do it,” he said. “I appreciate the marketing. I’m just like, can you just please give us a chance to put some absurd satire out there before you prove that it’s more realistic than we ever intended?”

One example comes from the current season. In a recent episode, the character Homelander, played by Antony Starr, begins to see himself as a god-like figure. The story shows him imagining a future where he is worshipped, with a vision that compares him to a higher power.

Kripke explained that while they were working on this storyline, he believed it was over the top and clearly fictional. But shortly before the episode came out, Donald Trump shared an AI-made image of himself as a Jesus-like figure online.

“This is the episode where Homelander decides he’s going to be God and 48 hours before it, Trump releases an image of himself as God,” Kripke said. “A month ago when we were talking about marketing, I was like, Homelander saying he’s God is so out there. We have to be careful about how we even introduce the idea to the public because they’ll say he’s gone too far and here we are. It’s just really hard to out-satire this world.”

The new season also explores how power and religion can mix in dangerous ways. In the show, Homelander starts building a kind of belief system around himself, working with a church leader character played by Daveed Diggs.

Kripke made it clear that the show is not attacking religion itself. Instead, he said the focus is on how belief can be used in the wrong way.

“I dig the Pope,” he said. “I think we take pains to make the point that religion, by and large, is a good thing. There are religious people on the show. It’s just when it’s weaponized, commodified, and used to tell politics of all things, it can be easily corrupted. I don’t know if people see this as well as I set it, but the show is pro-religion. It’s pro-belief. I just think the way that it’s used sometimes is just really shitty.”

This is not the first time the show has felt close to real life. The previous season had a storyline involving an attack on a U.S. president, which came out around the same time as a real-life incident involving Trump. According to reports, there were even talks about delaying that episode.

For many viewers, this overlap is part of what makes the show feel sharp and relevant. But for Kripke, it also creates a strange situation where satire starts to feel less like fiction.

This shows how fast real-world events can move, sometimes even faster than TV writers expect. It also raises a question about how far satire can go when reality keeps catching up. What do you think about this? Do you feel shows like this are still satire, or are they becoming too close to real life? Share your thoughts in the comments.