Tig Notaro is trying to curb her disappointment.
The comedian has opened up about why she decided to end her close friendship with “Curb Your Enthusiasm” alum Cheryl Hines, and said that the actor’s husband, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., played a big factor in her decision.
The “One Mississippi” star appeared on Tuesday’s episode of “Breaking Bread With Tom Papa” podcast, and nearly 50 minutes into the episode, Papa mentioned how much he “enjoyed” Notaro’s old podcast.
“Yeah… that show ended,” Notaro said dryly, referring to the podcast she used to co-host with Hines.
The duo’s defunct podcast “Tig & Cheryl: True Story,” centered around the former friends having very silly conversations about documentaries.
“Cheryl was one of my favorite friends to be ridiculous with,” Notaro told Papa. “And we made each other laugh so hard. And I love documentaries, and it was fun to have to watch a documentary every week, but also we took the pressure off, because we would ask each other things like, ‘Who are you attracted to in this documentary?’”
Screenshot from Cheryl Hine’s Instagram account
After reminiscing about how much fun she and Hines would have upsetting their more “NPR-type” fans who wanted more “critical” reviews of the documentaries they’d discuss, Notaro got into the meat of why she ended things with Hines.
“But Cheryl’s married to Bobby Kennedy Jr.,” Notaro said. “When he was announcing his run, I just felt like I needed to step away, because there are beliefs that were like a gnat on the arm years ago that were getting further into the spotlight.”
Although the Grammy-nominated comedian didn’t name any specific beliefs she disagreed with — like his penchant for spreading misinformation about vaccines — she did try to set herself further away from Kennedy by noting that her “friendship with Cheryl predated her marriage to Bobby.”
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“He was in environmental law,” Notaro said of Kennedy, who married Hines in 2014. “And, again, other beliefs he had were like a gnat on my arm. But then it started to grow, and Cheryl wanted me to hear Bobby out. They had these good ideas, and I was like, ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.’ I just didn’t trust it. And then he endorsed Trump, and then it just got hard.”
Papa then mentioned how Hines tried to distance herself from her husband’s political views as well.
Kennedy himself even admitted to TMZ shortly after he endorsed President Donald Trump last year that his wife wasn’t thrilled when he decided to go full MAGA.
“She’s a lifelong Democrat and the idea of me supporting Donald Trump as president was just … something that she would have never imagined, that she never wanted in her life,” Kennedy said at the time. “She went along with it because she loves me and she wanted to be supportive of me, but it was not something that she ever encouraged.”
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“When somebody is like, ‘Oh we don’t agree on everything,’ within a marriage that is so vague,” Notaro said, noting that she and her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, don’t always agree on the temperature on the thermostat.
“But I would never say, Stephanie and I don’t agree on things. And so, I think where it has led is— it’s not my world. It’s a hard pass.”
If Hines latest media appearances to promote her upcoming memoir are any indication, she seems to be embracing the right.
On Tuesday, she sparred with the co-hosts of “The View” defending Kennedy, but her appearance Wednesday on Meghan McCain’s interview show “Citizen McCain” was way more telling.
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In the interview, she spoke about how she found Republican women in Washington, D.C., glamorous.
“I mean, listen, when Melania Trump is setting the bar… That’s a high bar,” Hines said 22 minutes into the episode. “All the women in this administration are stunning.”
“I like everybody in there,” Hines told McCain of the Trump administration. “I have a genuinely good time with these guys.”
