Why Is the Internet Debating Whether Nancy Reagan Gave Good Head? (2024)

Warning: A few months ago a bunch of you got mad at me for writing about the late Michael Landon’s penis, supposedly on the grounds that one shouldn’t speak sexually of the dead — even if the dead in question was the one who wouldn’t shut up about his dick in the first place. Anyway, if you were one of those people, please feel free to see yourself out; this article about Nancy Reagan’s rumored head game is simply not for you.

Sometimes you will see things on Twitter that make absolutely no sense — things like “Nancy Reagan throat goat,” or a photo of the late First Lady on the arm of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor Pete Davidson. After years of diligently keeping up with current memes in an attempt to keep my timeline legible, I — an increasingly weary elder Gen Zer — have given up on this relentless journey to the center of each and every meme that graces the internet for its 15 minutes of fame before being replaced by the next one at the breakneck speed of the internet. These days, if I see something on Twitter that makes no sense, I take that as a sign from the universe that it’s none of my business and I was never meant to understand. No worries, I’ll get the next one.

Unfortunately, it turns out the Nancy Reagan tweets I ignored this weekend were, in fact, my business, because they were about blow j*bs. Specifically, they were about really good blow j*bs the former First Lady is rumored to have doled out with some frequency on the MGM lot back in her acting days.

It all started late last week when conservative lifestyle influencer/sister of conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, Abigail Shapiro, tweeted side by side photos of Madonna lounging on a bed with one exposed boob and a buttoned-up Nancy Reagan posing for a family photo. “This is Madonna at 63. This is Nancy Reagan at 64,” reads the tweet. “Trashy living vs. Classic living. Which version of yourself do you want to be?”

Clearly, this tweet was meant to shame Madonna for both her age and sexuality, while putting Nancy Reagan’s more ostensibly conservative lifestyle on a pedestal of ideal, demure womanhood. What it ended up doing, however, was unearthing some juicy rumors about the former First Lady’s rumored sexual prowess and promiscuity. In a reply to Shapiro’s tweet, writer Zach Heltzel shared a screenshot from a Village Voice article citing an unauthorized 1992 biography of Nancy Reagan that references the First Lady’s reputation for giving the best head in Hollywood.

According to the biography, Nancy Reagan “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.”

Naturally, this information led to a flood of memes hailing Nancy Reagan as the “throat goat,” which eventually devolved into photoshopped snaps of Nancy and Pete Davidson and even some extended discourse debating how Reagan’s supposed throat game would measure up to today’s standards.

Much of this, I believe, is all in good fun, and Nancy Reagan’s rumored promiscuity would be funny even if it weren’t for the obvious hypocrisy of a woman known to promote conservative Christian values and a whole ass war on p*rn during her time in the White House blowing every guy in Hollywood during her youth.

Still, it’s important to note — as Heltzel does in a subsequent reply — that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Nancy Reagan having enjoyed a promiscuous period in her youth (if indeed she did), just as there is absolutely nothing wrong with Madonna, or literally any other person of any age or gender, expressing their sexuality however they choose at any point in their life.

Moreover, it should also be noted that while these memes don’t seem to be meant to shame or otherwise hurt Reagan, there’s a good chance that when those rumors about her prowess on the MGM lot initially started swirling back in the day, they were meant to harm and humiliate. Hopefully these days, we are all mature enough to understand that there’s nothing bad or shameful about giving head — especially great head. And while some of us may be well within our rights to delight in the hypocrisy of an outwardly conservative political figure getting down and dirty in the MGM lot, the lesson here is that people of all kinds can and do have sex. You can be renowned for your head game throughout Hollywood in your youth and still grow up to be a respected political figure/doting mother/grandmother, you can be just as promiscuous at 64 as you were at 24, you can blow one guy or a thousand guys, and absolutely none of those things has any impact whatsoever on your worth or value as a human being.

Still, giving great head is no small talent, so to Nancy Reagan, on behalf of the entire internet, I would like to extend a hearty, posthumous congratulations for being the Throat Goat of Hollywood.