{"id":888610,"date":"2026-10-20T07:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888610\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T07:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:44:11","slug":"heather-mcmahan-on-hulu-special-by-a-thread-and-angry-golf-bros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888610\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather McMahan on Hulu Special ‘By a Thread’ and Angry Golf Bros"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor a brief moment in 2025, it seemed like Heather McMahan<\/a> was about to be canceled \u2014 and over a sequence of events so preposterous that the comedian couldn\u2019t have scripted it herself.<\/p>\n

\n\tHired to emcee the first tee of the Ryder Cup, the annual tournament that\u2019s meant to be a friendly battle between American and European golfers, she was struggling to win over her crowd: a rowdy, largely drunk, overwhelmingly male and decidedly American horde at the Long Island course. When they started chanting \u201cfuck you, Rory,\u201d a dig at Northern Irish golf star Rory McIlroy, McMahan saw an opportunity to ingratiate herself with her new audience. What she got was a minor international incident<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tournament fired McMahan. Tensions between the two teams escalated. She issued a public apology to McIlroy, but it was too late. For 72 hours, she was the recipient of the golf subsection of the manosphere\u2019s vitriol and threats. She says she fielded challenges to meet up for physical fights. When she returned from a brief social media blackout, she was relieved to see her feed had been cleansed. \u201cTaylor Swift really saved my ass,\u201d recalls McMahan. \u201cIt was so bad for three days, and then she dropped Life of a Showgirl. The entire news cycle had changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the impact of her brief cancellation stuck with McMahan, most auspiciously in her new special. By a Thread, which dropped on Hulu<\/a> over the weekend, opens with McMahan\u2019s vivid retelling of the event and the ensuing fallout. She also tackles myriad other subjects, but it\u2019s a hell of a way to open the show. Speaking during a recent of The Hollywood Reporter podcast I\u2019m Having an Episode (listen tot he full episode on Spotify<\/a>, Amazon Music<\/a>, Apple<\/a>), she talked about the similarities between sexism in sports and comedy<\/a> \u2014 and how her enthusiasm for Pitbull landed her a Guinness World Record.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith all respect to the emotional toll this cost you \u2026 as reasons for being \u201ccanceled\u201d go, this one is pretty cartoonish.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s hilarious. It\u2019s insane. For the first three days, a full 72 hours, it was very scary. I had grown men sending me personal messages, messaging my managers, my publicists, everybody. \u201cHave Heather meet me outside of XYZ steakhouse in Atlanta. We\u2019re ready to brawl.\u201d It is insane what people will send from their personal accounts. Like, this is from Bill. He\u2019s an accountant. I can see what firm he works at. What was scary was that I had never been in that sort of situation, specifically in a man\u2019s world. My audience is strongly females and fab gays. They get me. Afterwards, of course, every single one of my buddies in comedy messaged me like, \u201cThis is gold. This is the best thing that could happen to you.\u201d Once I had apologized, once we got over the hump, I was like, there\u2019s so much here.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving been raised in a very golf-centric family myself, what struck me about your experience is how rowdy the tournament crowds have gotten. It\u2019s like the dark side of Happy Gilmore. How do you see it?
Golf is in a really weird space. I grew up playing golf. I was a golfer in high school. It\u2019s in my blood. My husband and I go to The Masters every year. The Ryder Cup has always been known to be heavily competitive between Europe and America. But it\u2019s always been in good fun? I think [having it in Long Island], the already the weird animosity that America was having to outsiders, I don\u2019t think they were set up for success that year. And, I\u2019ll fall on the sword. I did not help the cause. It\u2019s just really wild. What does golf want to be? Is it all buttoned up like The Masters? Is it trying to be Happy Gilmore? I do think golf needed like shake off the cobwebs, quit being as stuffy, but it doesn\u2019t know where it wants to go.<\/p>\n

\n\tHas this has this experience changed your relationship golf?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes and no. Golf has had some real moments recently. The Calloway situation! Who the fuck signed off on this shit? [Calloway partnered with Good Good Golf on a commercial that depicted a man assaulting a woman<\/a>.] You watch that and realize that this is the problem. I learned that men don\u2019t want women in their spaces. You learn that a little bit in comedy, too. We\u2019re already having to like elbow our way into rooms and to get the respect that we deserve. But the sports world? I had so many sports reporters and women in the business reach out to me say, \u201cThis happens across every sport. We all deal with the craziness.\u201d I\u2019m not even shitting on golf, because I\u2019m still a huge fan, but I did just learn like I don\u2019t need to be put in those spaces. I can enjoy it and do my thing. I\u2019m only going to LPGA events now. Like that\u2019s what I want to focus on and and root for the girls. It put a bad taste in my mouth for the the manosphere in general.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo you\u2019re watching the LPGA. Did you watch Rory win the Masters this year?<\/p>\n

\n\tI went to the Masters and got to see him win again. I\u2019m still a huge fan. It\u2019s not the players. They\u2019re doing their thing. It\u2019s just this kind of weird environment with some of the the male fans these days. And again, I apologized, but I do think, had a male comedian been in my shoes, we would have never had this conversation. They wouldn\u2019t have given a shit. Dudes being dudes. Set it on fire, man.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a much lighter arena, I would like to address your Pitbull affinity.<\/p>\n

\n\tI started dressing in drag as Pitbull like 10 years ago, on a whim one Halloween. I went around trick-or-treating with a bunch of my friends\u2019 kids and they had no idea it was me for like the first hour and a half. They just thought some creepy guy was following them. Then I started doing impressions as him. By my first tour, people just knew that was my shtick. I love Pitbull.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut how did you come play such a prominent role at this past summer\u2019s largest recorded gathering of Baldies<\/a> \u2014 the people who wear bald caps to Pitbull shows?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis past summer I get a text from a Miami number, and it\u2019s Armando [P\u00e9rez], the real Pitbull. He\u2019s like, \u201cHeather, I\u2019ve seen all your stuff. I adore you. We have to have you be a part of this Guinness Book of World Records party in Hyde Park.\u201d So I end up going to London, I\u2019m in drag. I host this full countdown to the concert with two other guys. I think like 75,000 people came out, but the people actually there in time to be counted for the Guinness Record was around like 22,000. It was just incredible. Guinness sent me a plaque that\u2019s like, \u201cYou were a part of it.\u201d It was unreal. And I got to hang out with Armando. They say, \u201cDon\u2019t meet your heroes,\u201d in this business. But meet Pitbull.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a brief moment in 2025, it seemed like Heather McMahan was about to be canceled \u2014 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[1036,427,109936,10028,179371,99,179372],"class_list":["post-888610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-comedy","tag-golf","tag-heather-mcmahan","tag-hulu","tag-im-having-an-episode","tag-sports","tag-thrs-original-podcasts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}