Tig Notaro shared more Monday about her fallout with former friend and podcast co-host Cheryl Hines over her marriage to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., telling MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace that she had to “shake myself out of denial” that it was good and over.
Sitting with the MS NOW host on her “The Best People” podcast, Notaro recalled why she decided to remove herself from “Tig and Cheryl: True Story” as RFK Jr. gained political momentum and touted ideals that went against her own.
“I think that I needed to stop doing the podcast because it was so ridiculous, it was so stupid that it was hard to be doing that when he was gaining momentum and speaking,” she said. “People would interrupt my stand-up shows and yell, ‘Bobby is crazy!’ And 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 want to be a part of this.’ And she was like, ‘I understand.’”
From there, Notaro noted that Hines continued the podcast with comedian Rachael Harris — “which I was fine for them to do” — but that it was a decision that Hines appeared at peace with.
“But what was most upsetting to me was that we were in such opposing places, but I continued to reach out to her and send her love and support, because I didn’t know what was going on behind closed doors, because things shifted very severely,” she recalled. “And she would respond very pleasantly — ‘Thanks, lady. Oh, this means so much, and I love you and miss you’ and all of that. But then I realized one day she doesn’t ever reach out to me anymore.”
The comedian added: “She’s responds to me, but she doesn’t reach out to me. And I had to kind of shake myself out of denial that she’s gone and OK, I need to let this go. I need to let it go.”
Notaro added that it’s a “bummer” to see Hines give interviews where their fallout is framed as Notaro cutting Hines loose rather than the other way around. (In a November interview with Howie Mandel, for instance, Hines said, “I don’t hold anything against her because that’s what she feels like she needs to do for herself, and she feels like she needs to distance herself from me.”)
“There have been some interviews claiming that I just dumped her and and just left her in the dust because of Bobby, but I was trying to be a friend to her, even though I didn’t feel like I could continue with the podcast,” Notaro told Wallace. “But it’s been very strange, and I think I’ve moved past the confusion and sadness.”
Watch Notaro’s full “The Best People” interview in the video below:
Notaro previously shared that she began taking issue with Hines’ relationship with RFK Jr. as the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actress began apparently aligning herself with his politics.
“When somebody is like, ‘Oh we don’t agree on everything’ within a marriage, that is so vague,” Notaro said on the “Breaking Bread With Tom Papa” podcast in October. Hines had pragmatically used such lines while on “The View” or being profiled by The Wall Street Journal. Notaro criticized such vagueness by comparing it to disagreements she has with her wife about the thermostat.
“I think where it has led is … It’s not my world. It’s a hard pass,” she told Papa at the time, adding, “You’re OKing a particular ride for this country to go on.”
Lamenting her “Tig and Cheryl” podcast with Hines, Notaro explained, “It’s really sad, because it did bring me so much joy. And Cheryl did bring me so much joy. But that’s what I’m looking for, is I want to get back to prioritizing people that bring me joy and workloads that bring me joy.”
