Why Are People Tweeting That Nancy Reagan Was the 'Throat Goat?' (2024)

I logged off of Twitter for a couple of healthy hours on Friday. By the time I opened the app on Saturday, my timeline was full of words I did not understand. “Nancy Reagan Throat Goat?” “Nancy’s got that gawk gawk 3000?” I had clearly missed some crucial breaking news, a classic Friday News Dump that spawned memes all weekend: former First Lady Nancy Reagan, allegedly, gave the greatest blowj*b in Hollywood back in her acting days—and she gave a lot of them. Allegedly.

The catalyst for this cursed information, I am told by colleagues who swiftly caught me up on this important news, was a tweet from a modest-lifestyle influencer and conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro’s sister Abigail Shapiro, who has various social media channels called Classically Abby. Shapiro tweeted a photo of Madonna reclining on a bed with one boob out, and the Reagan family gathered for a wholesome photo where Nancy stands in the middle dressed like a Where’s Waldo’s grandma cosplay. “This is Madonna at 63. This is Nancy Reagan at 64. Trashy living vs. Classic living. Which version of yourself do you want to be?”

Abigail Shapiro is a YouTuber and social media personality who talks about how cool and fun it is to cover up and be a “classic woman”—something Nancy would have loved, coincidentally—which would be fine if Abby wasn’t also deeply into shaming people who are more comfortable with their bodies and sexualities. Some of her stances include “Leggings Are A Problem” because they’re distracting to men, wives should ask husbands to praise them about how well they cleaned their home, and texting is ruining dating.

The intention of Shapiro’s tweet was seemingly to portray Madonna as a sex-craved maniac and Reagan as a buttoned up, classical wife that women should aspire to (it’s of course OK to be whatever and whoever you want to be!) In a stroke of satisfying irony, however, the internet unearthed a very juicy tidbit about Nancy’s personal life, pre-White House, in response to this tweet from hell. As spotted in June by the Washington Babylon, an unauthorized biography of Nancy published in 1992 noted that Nancy “was renowned in Hollywood for performing oral sex…not only in the evening but in offices. That was one of the reasons that she was very popular on the MGM lot.” Another source is quoted in that book as saying Nancy tagged along with friends on trips to Arizona; her guy friends would pick up girls at Arizona State University, and Nancy “entertained them orally” on those road trips. A Village Voice article from 1998 also referenced the biography, and noted that Nancy “was known to give the best blowj*b in town.”

This is all to say that lots of different types of people enjoy sex, possibly have a lot of it, and might even be good at it, regardless of how they dress or their general public image.

Motherboard has been unable to verify these stories, but this set off an entire weekend of memes, videos, jokes, tweets, etc, about Nancy Reagan allegedly being very good at giving blowj*bs.

The result of Abby’s observation, and the subsequent revelation that, allegedly, the former First Lady’s head game went crazy, resulted in some of the best jokes this terrible little app has seen in a very long time:

The meme’s lifecycle moved quickly to the schoolmarms of Twitter takes; TV writer Nell Scovell tweeted (and then deleted) on behalf of scolds everywhere: “If you’re laughing about Nancy Reagan having skills at sex, please remember this is it’s a classic high school move.” There’s nothing wrong with being really great at blowj*bs, but it’s not hard to imagine that the story, whether it was true or not, was initially shared and passed on with the intention of hurting and humiliating Nancy Reagan. But I haven’t seen anyone intending to do that now that the story’s been revived on Twitter. Being wildly good at hitting that lil’ dangly thing that swings in the back of her throat, as Cardi B might say, is a real skill.

But one could make the argument that it is, in fact, good and fun to shame a Reagan for her hypocrisy, considering that administration’s contributions to the sex-negative world we live in today, including the disastrously harmful War on Drugs and the War on p*rn. The 1986 Meese Report, commissioned by Ronald Reagan, spurred the political war on p*rnography by claiming that p*rn was linked to violence against women. The report has been widely discredited.

Nancy herself held a lot of disdain for the women’s liberation movement of the 1980s. She reportedly called the movement “silly women’s libbers,” hated that they wore “hot pants,” and felt that women would succeed in life if they behaved and appeared feminine. She believed that women were happiest in the home, raising children and caring for a man. She also hated poor people and people with AIDs, famously refused to help a friend who was dying of the disease.

Reagan also repeatedly attacked p*rn. “p*rnography is p*rnography, what is there to see?” she’s quoted as saying during one of the Q&A sessions she sometimes held about women’s issues. “How curious can you be? Unless, of course, you’re interested in becoming a voyeur, which I’m not. I’m appalled and ashamed of the motion picture industry today. Movies are attempting to destroy something that’s supposed to be the most beautiful thing a man and woman can have by making it cheap and common. It’s what you don’t see that’s attractive. What they’re showing is animals.” Apparently, what happened behind the scenes on the MGM lot was fine as long as a p*rn director didn’t show up.

Decades later, some people are still confused about whether Nancy was a feminist icon or a prude, or somehow, both: in 2016 Bustle deemed her legacy “beautifully empowering” because she used to be an actress before being First Lady and stood up for her choice to be a wife and homemaker, while others like Slate have denounced her rhetoric that gender inequality could simply be solved if women chose to stay in the home and settle into their societally-assigned gender roles. The Nancy Throat Goat memes get a lot more satisfying when you remember that Nancy really, actually, sucked.

As of writing, the Nancy Reagan cosplay p*rn scene is bereft, as is the fanfic world. A void to be filled, perhaps.

I have reached out to the Reagan Foundation for comment, and will update if I hear back.