Tig Notaro Opens Up About Her Fallout with Cheryl Hines Over RFK Jr.: “She's Gone”
The pair used to host a comedy podcast together called Tig and Cheryl: True Story.
Tig Notaro Opens Up About Her Fallout with Cheryl Hines Over RFK Jr.: “She’s Gone”
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We all know that politics can get in the way of friendship. And no one knows that better than Tig Notaro.
While speaking to MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace on the The Best People podcast, the comedian opened about her former friendship with actress Cheryl Hines, who is married to Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Together, Notaro and Hines used to host the podcast
Tig and Cheryl: True Story.
In her interview with Wallace, Notaro noted that the True Story podcast ended shortly after Kennedy began running for the White House in 2023, even though the friendship between the two extended back to the early 2000s. As RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign continued, their fun and “ridiculous” show became harder to maintain.
“People would interrupt my stand-up shows and yell, ‘Bobby is crazy!'” Notaro said, per People. “I was telling Cheryl, ‘I know it’s a small percentage that pushes back online or yells out at shows,’ but I was like, ‘Man, this is not my world. I don’t do this. I don’t want to be a part of this.’ And she was like, ‘I understand,’ but she wanted to keep doing the podcast. I had to step away, but I loved her so much.”
Notaro went on to say that, even though she had long had beliefs that didn’t jibe with RFK Jr.’s, she didn’t feel the need to have that affect her friendship with Hines, until the health secretary’s influence grew.
“There were things that he thought and felt that I didn't agree with. But he didn't have the platform that he got during the pandemic,” Notaro said. “I needed to stop doing the podcast because it was so ridiculous. It was so stupid, our show, that it was hard to be doing that when he was gaining momentum and speaking.”
However, after leaving their podcast, Notaro said things between them "shifted very severely.”
“I realized one day that she doesn’t ever reach out to me anymore,” Notaro said. “She responds to me, but she doesn’t reach out to me. I had to kind of shake myself out of denial that, ‘Oh, she’s gone,’ and, ‘OK, I need to let this go. I need to let it go.’”
Notaro has spoken previously about the fallout between the two, including Hines’ rhetoric regarding some of the secretary’s most outlandish beliefs, which encompass such wide-ranging topics as vaccines and poppers.
"When somebody is like, 'Oh, we don't agree on everything' within a marriage, that is so vague," Notaro said in October, per People. "I think where it has led is ... It's not my world. It's a hard pass. You're okaying a particular ride for this country to go on."
Notaro is currently nominated for an Academy Award for producing the documentary film Come See Me in the Good Light, a film about the life and death of queer poet Andrea Gibson.
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RFK Jr. recently announced, much to the dismay of gays everywhere, that he has coffee companies such as Dunkin’ in his crosshairs, implying that he will require them to prove that their sugar content is not harmful to Americans.
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