Margaret Cho has disclosed that she was offered a part in HBO's gay hockey romance series Heated Rivalry but turned it down over concerns that she might be detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Canadian border, where the show was filmed. The 57-year-old San Francisco-born comedian, known for her outspoken criticism of President Donald Trump and his immigration policies, shared the revelation on a recent episode of the I Never Liked You podcast.
“Last year, I got a pilot script for a show that I really loved, but it shot in Canada,” Cho explained. “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.” She added, “I was struggling over it. I had to talk to all of these people about it. And I was super upset about it, and I said no. And it was Heated Rivalry.”
Fan of the Series
Cho noted that she has since become a huge admirer of the series, which stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams as hockey players from rival teams who engage in a secret romance. “I’ve watched it. I’ve hosted some rewatch parties, and I’m like it kills me, like it kills me because of Trump,” the comedian lamented. While she did not specify which character she would have played, she praised the actor who ultimately took the role.
Future Possibilities
Cho confirmed that she has approached the show's creators about potentially appearing in a second season. “We’ll see,” she teased. The Drop Dead Diva alum previously labeled Trump as “abhorrent” in a 2015 interview with The Daily Beast. “I really do believe that it’s something to distract us from the real problem,” she said of his initial presidential campaign, “which is that we’re going to lose a huge part of women’s health care that is vital to the survival of women, the health of women, and the sanity of women. So I think it’s a red herring. I think Donald Trump is not really there for any purpose other than to distract.”
In 2021, Cho admitted to The Guardian that she loves “to Donald Trump-bash and blame him for any reason I can.” However, she added, “But the fact is that his casual racism is more a symptom of the greater problem than the cause of this,” referring to the rise in anti-Asian violence at the time. “It’s about the repetitive nature of hate crimes and how they’re not new, even if they seem new, because they’re presented as shocking and new by the news.”
Cho also opened up about fearing for her personal safety as a Korean-American, stating, “I’m really scared. It’s kind of like: how do you escape your skin? I limit my time out and I think it’s awful to acknowledge that.”
