Britt McHenry fucked up again. The scandal-magnet sports reporter lost her brand-new government gig after throwing a tantrum and a drink at a basketball game.
Seems like only yesterday that Defector was reporting that the former Fox News and ESPN personality was boasting online about being hired by the Trump administration: "Big news," she wrote, "I am a newly appointed press advisor for the State Department of the United States of America."
That actually happened about a month ago, though it took until last week for a State Department spokesperson to even confirm to Defector that McHenry, 40, actually had a job there. Yet within days of Marco Rubio’s shambolic agency finally responding to our ancient-ish fact-checking request about her, McHenry’s employment status changed. She was gone.
For those who don’t have news alerts for when McHenry screws up: The new civil servant got caught being uncivil, just like old times. This past Wednesday, McHenry got ejected from the Washington Wizards' home opener as people around her chanted "Kick her out!" It’s unclear from the videos exactly what started the scrap or how McHenry somehow turned a whole section against her, but it is clear that, once she got into this pickle, she was unable to prevent arena staff from tossing her. If these were the best diplomatic efforts McHenry can muster when the going gets tough, the State Department really ain’t losing a whole lot by jettisoning her.
Much of the fracas was captured by the phone cameras of seemingly more people than normal at a Wiz home game, and a whole lot of incriminating and embarrassing videos of McHenry behaving badly yet again ended up online. Some greatest hits include McHenry tossing a drink at someone, and a marvelously cringy scene where she’s claiming to be bewildered by the bum rushing—“What did I do?” she says on the video while making a face straight out of an Inebriated Faces 101 class—all while a guard personally escorts her out. McHenry’s goose was once again cooked.
A local restaurateur I know can be seen in the videos of the fracas ducking beverages and other flying objects from a seat in McHenry’s row. The restaurateur, who declined Defector’s request to comment, posted on Instagram stories a day later, detailing the donnybrook thusly: "So many of us in that row had to witness this mess unfold! A father and son had to move seats, many of us had beer splattered on our clothes and watched as a woman felt entitled and privileged to act like this and then scare security by saying she knew Ted Leonsis!!” That post has since disappeared.
According to a New York Post report, McHenry was "forced to resign" from the administration job a day after the Wiz story broke.
McHenry did not respond to Defector's request for comment. Defector also asked the State Department press office to confirm the reports that she was out, but only received in response the following statement from an agency spokesperson via email: "We do not comment on internal personnel matters."
McHenry’s been in the public eye for about a decade and a half, and she's used to finding herself as the newsmaker and not the reporter. She covered the NFL for ESPN, but her standing at the network went south after a 2015 incident in which she berated a female cashier at a towing yard in Northern Virginia when her car was towed after a night out at a Chinese eatery. "I'm on television and you're in a fucking trailer, honey," McHenry spewed, along with "Lose some weight, baby girl!" The whole mean-girl shebang was caught on the tow yard’s security cameras, and got oodles of airtime on TMZ.
ESPN suspended McHenry, then canned her for good in 2017 during a mass layoff. By then, McHenry had issued a lousy apology asking for a chance "to prove to you how much I value integrity, character and treating people with respect," and claiming the ranter on the tow truck video "is not who I am."
Alas, based on visual and other cues available since McHenry’s most recent night out with a bad ending, it sure seems like that was, indeed, who she is.
Back to me: Before McHenry got the ESPN gig, she was a D.C. TV news personality, and I was brought on as a guest on a local cable show she hosted to talk about the NFL team a couple times. I have no idea what I said during those appearances, but after her Wizards dustup, I went through my email archives and found myself telling friends years ago that she was fun to be around and that "I was in awe of how few fucks she gave about her job." Still rings true.
