Margaret Cho Turned Down Heated Rivalry Role ‘Because Of Trump’

Biconic stand-up legend Margaret Cho has revealed she turned down a role in Heated Rivalry over fears she would be detained by ICE if she left the country to film.

In an appearance on Matteo Lane and Nick Smith’s podcast I Never Liked You earlier this week, Cho said she received a pilot script for a show she loved that was shooting in Canada, but was anxious her long and vocal opposition to the Trump administration would get her in trouble.

“I was like, I will get detained at the border and I will be put in ICE detention if I go, and I was struggling over it.”

“I had to talk to all these people about it and I was super upset,” she said, before revealing that the project was none other than Heated Rivalry to many a gay gasp.

The show obviously went on to take the world by storm, no matter where viewers sat on the Kinsey scale, shooting lead actors Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams to superstardom.

“I hosted some rewatch parties and it kills me,” she said. “Like, it kills me, and it’s all because of Trump.”

“I watch it, and I’m like, ‘That’s my child! Hudson is my child!’ Of course, the woman who played the part did a great job and she’s wonderful and iconic, and everybody in it is the perfect [fit] — it came out so perfectly.

“It really solidified the fact that, as queer people, we’re here. Even in this politicised time when our existence has become criminalised, we’re here, and people want to hear our stories.”

With development of season two of the show already underway, Cho said she had reached out to the Heated Rivalry team to see if they had any room for her.

“I asked them,” she teased. “We’ll see.”

In another interview in March, Cho said she had almost joined the cast of Trump’s reality show The Apprentice, having been asked several times to consider it.

“They kept saying, ‘Well, Donald Trump really loves you. Please come on,'” Cho shared. “I just had a bad feeling about it.”