Comedian Theo Von admitted that the hate he received for being in a Department of Homeland Security video was “scary” and caused him to be “paranoid.”
Von, whose real name is Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski, discussed the video aftermath in an episode of his podcast, This Past Weekend, that aired on Wednesday. He explained to fellow comedian Andrew Santino that DHS posted the video on X around the time he was preparing to film his stand-up special for Netflix.
“The government put out this DHS video that made me really scared,” Von said.
“The immigration video? Talk about pulling that out of context. They’re so good at that. They just took something that had nothing to do with something else. You making a joke and then they’re like, ‘He’s our spokesperson,’” Santino said before bursting into laughter. “You’re like, ‘What? I didn’t sign up for that.’”
Santino was referring to a since-deleted X post from DHS on Sept. 24. The video begins with Von recording himself in selfie mode, saying, “Heard you got deported, dude… Bye!” and ends with “leave now.”
Von spoke out against the post in the hours after it was posted, insisting he “didn’t approve to be used in this.” His X post has also since been deleted. In an apparent joke, Von suggested DHS “send a check” and “take this down.” Von clarified that “when it comes to immigration, my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows.”
“And so I just got so much hate stuff. I mean, a lot of it I didn’t see, but I would just see enough where it was like, ‘f***, this is scary.’ And that Charlie Kirk thing had happened, I think, a couple weeks before. And so I started just getting real paranoid,” Von said on the podcast.
“I started getting real paranoid at home. I was paranoid about the show, like if there could be somebody in the audience, you know. It just, like, I think it made me really scared to be honest with you,” Von added. “I mean, there was people after that Charlie Kirk thing, texting each other like you know ‘stay safe’ you know.”
Von’s father was an immigrant from Nicaragua. Von said in a podcast episode earlier this month that his father’s immigration papers are among his “prized possessions,” which he has framed on display. Von’s original video was intended for a fan after one of his stand-up shows, who asked him to make it for a friend who was allegedly deported.
During this earlier episode, Von spoke alone without guests and said a “high government official” was aware of the backlash Von received from the video. This person allegedly offered Von “extra security” via text on Sept. 25, a day after DHS posted the video.
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After a gunman shot and killed Kirk, Von put out a solo podcast episode to lament his death. Von said he didn’t personally know Kirk, but he “admired that he was brave. He went out and had conversations.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Von and DHS for comment.