On a Monday conversation with Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW’s The Best People podcast, Tig Notaro described the moment she stopped telling herself the friendship could be repaired: it was over. In her telling, the rupture with cheryl hines did not arrive with a single fight, but with a slow, unmistakable silence—pleasant replies that never turned into outreach, and a growing realization that the door was no longer opening from the other side.
What did Tig Notaro say happened with cheryl hines?
Notaro said she “had to kind of shake myself out of denial” and accept that Hines was “gone, ” adding she needed to “let this go. ” She told Wallace she had moved past “confusion and sadness, ” even as she described how disorienting it felt to keep sending support while sensing the friendship becoming one-sided.
Notaro framed her decision to step away from their shared project, Tig and Cheryl: True Story, as a boundary she felt she needed as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. —Hines’ husband—gained political momentum. Notaro told Wallace she found it increasingly hard to keep doing the podcast while Kennedy was “gaining momentum and speaking, ” and while she was being heckled during stand-up shows by audience members yelling comments about him.
In Notaro’s account, she told Hines the heckling and online pushback were a small percentage, but it still left her thinking, “this is not my world. I don’t want to be a part of this. ” Notaro said Hines responded, “I understand. ”
How did the podcast change after Tig Notaro stepped away?
Notaro said Hines continued the podcast with comedian Rachael Harris for a period, a decision Notaro said she was fine with. The two originally cohosted from 2020 to 2023, and Notaro described the show as a source of some of the “deepest, hardest laughs. ”
Notaro’s explanation for leaving centered on how the podcast’s presence in her life collided with the political moment building around Kennedy. She described the show itself as feeling “ridiculous” to keep doing under those conditions. Even after stepping away, Notaro said she continued to reach out to Hines with love and support, explaining she did not know what was happening “behind closed doors” as “things shifted very severely. ”
What changed, Notaro said, was the direction of the communication. Hines would respond “very pleasantly, ” with messages like “Thanks, lady, ” and “I love you and miss you, ” but Notaro eventually noticed Hines did not initiate contact anymore. “She responds to me, but she doesn’t reach out to me, ” Notaro said—describing that as the detail that finally forced her to stop hoping the friendship would return to what it had been.
Why does this falling-out matter beyond two comedians?
The story has expanded into a public portrait of how political alignment can bend private relationships, particularly when a spouse’s ambitions and public role reshape the everyday lives of the people nearby. Notaro described a work-life consequence—heckling at shows—that turned a personal disagreement into a professional disruption. In her telling, the shift was not abstract: it followed her into venues, into the pacing of her set, and into how strangers addressed her in real time.
Notaro also said it was a “bummer” to see interviews where the breakup is framed as if she simply “dumped” Hines, rather than something more mutual or complicated. She referenced a November interview in which Hines told Howie Mandel, “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. ” Notaro told Wallace she was trying to remain a friend even though she did not feel she could continue with the podcast.
In an earlier October conversation on Tom Papa’s Breaking Bread podcast, Notaro criticized what she described as vague explanations for political differences inside a marriage—phrases like “we don’t agree on everything. ” Notaro suggested that kind of phrasing minimized what she saw as consequential divides, contrasting it with ordinary domestic disagreements like a thermostat setting.
Meanwhile, the political stakes and cultural noise around Kennedy have also surfaced in other personal narratives. On a March 4 episode of her Dear Chelsea podcast, Chelsea Handler described buying Kennedy’s Los Angeles house five years earlier and said she “still” had not lived in it. Handler said that when the home was opened up, she was told it was “the most toxic environment” and that she could not live there “for at least two years. ” She also said she did not know she was buying the house from Kennedy at the time because it was “under wraps. ”
Handler connected her anger to Kennedy’s public responsibilities, saying, “The idea that this guy is in charge of the health of our country when he didn’t even have a proper foundation at his house, ” while describing the situation as “a disaster. ” She added that “Cheryl Hines left me notes saying let us know if there’s anything we can do for you, ” and Handler responded with a profane retort about needing “a foundation. ”
Handler also repeated that Kennedy has angered many with controversial comments including an anti-vaccine stance and a warning that pregnant women should not take Tylenol, claiming it could cause autism. Tylenol’s parent company, Kenvue, disputed that, saying, “We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers. ”
What are the responses from the people involved?
In the public record available here, Notaro has given the most detailed description of the friendship’s end—placing emphasis on her decision to step away, her effort to keep reaching out, and the eventual recognition that the outreach was not being returned. Hines, in a separate setting with Howie Mandel, described the limits she felt she had, saying, “When it was feeling a lot for her, there wasn’t much I could do about it other than leave my husband. ” Mandel added in that conversation that Hines had not spoken to Notaro “lately. ”
Notaro’s more recent comments to Wallace suggest that time, rather than reconciliation, has been the primary solvent. She said she had moved past the worst of the emotions—yet she also described the whole arc as “very strange, ” a phrase that captures the mismatch between friendly replies and the quiet absence of initiation.
In Notaro’s telling, the break did not end with a dramatic goodbye. It ended with a small, repeatable pattern: a message sent, a pleasant response, then nothing new—until even hope began to feel like denial. Returning to that moment on Wallace’s show, Notaro said she had to accept the simplest truth she had been resisting: cheryl hines was no longer reaching back.
