MAGA MIXUP

Anti-Trump Comedian Reveals Why Everyone Thinks She’s MAGA

The stand-up star tells “Obsessed: The Podcast” what happened after she got unfairly tied to Trump.

Everything about comedian Heather McMahan screams MAGA—except for her actual politics.

In her Oct. 16 stand-up special, Heather McMahan: By a Thread, the comic discusses the public’s huge misconception. She told Obsessed: The Podcast that she understands why it caught on.

“I’m like, why do people think I’m MAGA?” McMahan, 39, told Obsessed. “And then I’m like, look at me. I’m always dolled to the nines; I always have a full drag beat on; I’m from Georgia; I live in Atlanta; I went to school in Mississippi. Like, I’m giving Blindside.”

The MAGA rumors surrounding McMahan also stem from her brief stint as the first-tee emcee of the 2025 Ryder Cup, the biennial men’s golf competition between the United States and Europe.

McMahan, a self-described “huge golf fan,” joined an audience chant directed at Northern Irish golf star Rory McIlroy, echoing “F— you, Rory” into her microphone.

President Donald Trump, 80, attended the tournament the day before, when McMahan wasn’t there, McMahan said. She added that Trump’s proximity led the British media, which was already angry at her for the McIlroy chant, to conflate the comedian with MAGA.

“It was a wild experience,” McMahan said. “Trump had come out to the tournament the day before. I was never photographed with him, was never around him. We were not there. At the same time, the British media ran with this whole thing that I was MAGA now.”

McIlroy, 37, has an on-again, off-again relationship with Trump, golfing with him on some occasions and criticizing his leadership on others. McMahan, though, has remained a staunch opponent of the president and has praised MAGA enemies like CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.

McMahan’s “angry European fans” were first mad at McMahan’s McIlroy comments, and then they were mad because “they thought that I was, like, a part of Trump’s cabinet,” she continued. “I’m, like, absolutely not.”

McMahan added that the “gentle cancellation” was bizarre because she had to affirm her liberal beliefs amid receiving “death threats from grown men.”

“I was getting death threats from the European fans because they thought I was MAGA,” she said. “And then the MAGA guys stateside were sending me love letters and d--k pics” for the same reason, which McMahan described as “one of the worst things.”

Though men expressed strong opinions about her, McMahan said women thought the whole affair was “funny as s--t,” and her comedy friends told her to “double down.” Though she was apologetic, her friends helped her recognize the drama as a comedic gift.

“As a comedian, these kinds of nuggets are what you live for,” McMahan said. “All my comedy buddies were like, ‘This is great. You have to put this in your act.’ And then we made it special about it. So there you go.”

Heather McMahan: By A Thread is streaming now on Hulu.

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Dana Herrnstadt Editorial Intern, Obsessed

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