Comedian Margaret Cho claims President Donald Trump and ICE are somehow responsible for her missing out on an acting role she was supposedly offered in a popular HBO Max series — a bizarre accusation considering Cho is an American citizen, and ICE is not deporting U.S. citizens for criticizing politicians online.
If this story sounds completely detached from reality, that’s because it is.
During a recent appearance on Matteo Lane and Nick Smith’s podcast I Never Liked You, Cho claimed she turned down what she says was a role in HBO Max’s hockey drama Heated Rivalry because it filmed in Canada — and she feared her criticism of ICE and the Trump administration could somehow lead to her being detained at the border.
“Last year, I got a pilot script for a show that I really loved, but it shot in Canada,” Cho said. “And I was so scared because I’m so vocal about hating ICE and hating this administration. I was like, ‘I will get detained at the border and I will be put in ICE detention if I go.’”
There’s just one major problem with this dramatic tale of oppression: Cho is a U.S. citizen.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not roaming around airports detaining American citizens because they made anti-Trump comments on social media. That’s not how any of this works. But apparently in celebrity activist world, basic facts no longer matter as long as the victim narrative sounds emotional enough.
And instead of pushing back or asking obvious follow-up questions, the hosts collectively appeared to indulge the fantasy — nodding along as though Cho was describing life under some authoritarian regime rather than modern-day America.
At no point did anyone ask: Why would ICE care about Cho? What law did she supposedly break? What evidence exists that she would’ve been denied entry into her own country?
The answer appears to be none.
Cho then escalated the hysteria even further by claiming:
“It really solidified the fact that, as queer people, we’re here. Even in this politicized time when our existence has become criminalized, we’re here, and people want to hear our stories.”
Again — completely false.
Gay people are not “criminalized” in the United States. No law under the Trump administration made homosexuality illegal. Nobody is banning LGBT Americans from existing publicly. But increasingly, celebrities and activists like Cho frame ordinary political disagreements as literal persecution in order to elevate themselves into victims of some imaginary dystopia.
This is peak delusion.
What makes the story even shakier is the complete lack of evidence surrounding Cho’s claims altogether.
At this point, there’s no public confirmation from HBO Max or the show’s producers that Cho was ever formally offered the role she claims she rejected. Entertainment outlets largely repeated her account without verification — because apparently if a celebrity says something anti-Trump enough, journalists suddenly stop asking questions.
Cho has also repeatedly claimed over the years that she was invited multiple times to appear on The Celebrity Apprentice because Donald Trump supposedly “loved” her.
Once again: no public confirmation.
And the timeline makes her claims even more dubious. During the Apprentice era, Hollywood loved Trump. Celebrities lined up to be around him. NBC built one of its biggest reality franchises around him. The same entertainment industry now pretending Trump was always some uniquely toxic figure spent years celebrating him, inviting him on television shows and cashing checks off his popularity.
So the idea that Cho bravely resisted appearing on The Apprentice years in advance way before Trump ran for office because of deep political convictions doesn’t exactly pass the smell test.
At the end of the day, this entire podcast interview felt less like a serious conversation and more like a masterclass in modern celebrity victimhood: blame Trump, blame ICE, blame politics, blame oppression — anything except personal choices or career decisions.
