Theo Von Thinks Frederick Douglass Was Secretly Gay and Used the Underground Railroad to Meet Men

Last night a video of Theo Von’s new interview with JD Vance made the rounds on Twitter. In the clip, which you’ll find here, Von jokes that he heard from 15 or possibly four Black people that Frederick Douglass was gay and “wanted to free all those men because he was having trouble meeting anybody.” Vance has a good laugh about this and compliments his host’s dry sense of humor. 

Watching the clip, I thought to myself: “Alright, I have to admit that’s a pretty funny thing to say to the vice president.” Then I remembered who I was watching, and I thought: “Wait. Does he actually believe this?”

Some light digging suggests he does. Von has brought up this theory about Frederick Douglass on at least three other episodes I could find, all within the last year. Most recent is his conversation with Bobby Lee eight months ago:

Von: [Talking about Cleopatra] But if you're going to travel all the way back in time, you got to smash, you feel me? I think you'd have an easier time smashing than me. What about Frederick Douglass?

Lee: The Black guy?

Von: Smash or pass?

Lee: Smash. Smash, for sure.

Von: Yeah.

Lee: Yeah, yeah. Although he is probably—

Von: Oh, look at him.

Lee: Do you think he has a gape-y butthole or no?

Von: Huh? I don't know, I heard he's got an underground railroad. That's insane.

Lee: That's insane what you just said there.

Von: We're going to hell.

Lee: No. No, but—

Von: I did hear that he was gay, but I don't know that.

Lee: They should bring that hairstyle back.

Von: A lot of my Black friends have told that he enjoyed the pleasures of men.

Lee: Dude, that hairstyle, it has to come back.

Von: Oh, yeah.

Then there’s his conversation with Nick Swardson 10 months ago:

Von: Dude, you know what? I saw the other day... Did I tell you I heard that Frederick Douglass was gay? Did I tell you that?

Swardson: Frederick Douglass, like the old Black author?

Von: Yeah.

Swardson: Who—

Von: There he is. Bro, hit that picture right there above one.

Swardson: How did that—

Von: Come on. Bro, you telling me, bro. And look, I respect—

Swardson: How did that come out of that Frederick Douglass is gay?

Von: Bro, I respect fucking F-Doug to the end, bro.

Swardson: Yeah, he's a legend.

Von: But don't even tell me, bro. He was like Lil Nas X-scape.

Swardson: He looks like he was the other member of Color Me Badd.

Von: Yeah, dude.

Swardson: [Singing:] "I wanna sex you up."

Von: "Tick tock, ya don't. All night."

Swardson: "Sweaty genitals. Sweaty genitals."

Von: But you know, bro, F-D. And I just heard that. I'm not saying that. That's something that I've heard a lot.

Swardson: Yeah. Did you grow up with him? How'd you even know that?

Von: No, it was just, you would read it on places. You would read little—

Swardson: Where did you read that?

Von: Just saw, what's it called—

Swardson: [I think this is a jab at David Spade, who they talk about earlier in the episode:] Spade.com?

Von: No, people write something on a bench or whatever. "Henry got fucked" or whatever. You're like, well, geez. Okay—

Swardson: Right. I don't read benches and live by it.

Von: But benches used to be the internet, though. You didn't have the internet, dude. You had whatever somebody wrote on a—

Swardson: Bathroom walls and all that?

Von: Yeah, that was the internet. Don't you know that? The original Reddit?

Swardson: I guess, yeah. Yeah, that's about—

Von: "Larry sucks cock" or whatever. You're like, oh, God. Good to know.

Swardson: "Gary's got that gay flu."

Von: Yeah.

Swardson: "Motherfucker."

Von: "Hit me up for free tires" or whatever, like a 1-800 number. But that was the internet, was the bathroom wall or benches, man.

Swardson: Yeah, that's true.

Von: You know what I was looking at recently, man? There's gay animals out there.

And finally here’s his chat with Matt McCusker a year ago: 

Von: Dude, I heard honestly Frederick Douglass like dudes, bro.

McCusker: What?

Von: Yeah. And nobody wants to say that shit.

McCusker: Frederick Douglass, damn, really?

Von: Yeah.

McCusker: Are you breaking it?

Von: I don't want to out the dude, but, free at last. 

McCusker: It took me—I had to go through my database of people. I thought at first you're talking about Michael Douglas and then I went, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Different guy. Different guy.

Von: Totally different guy.

McCusker: Way different. He was possibly fucking dudes. That's crazy. I mean, I get it.

Von: It's not that crazy though.

McCusker: No, it's not.

Von: Because think about it. If you're like, I'm gonna do something different, I don't want to have slavery. Right? I'm going to lead my people to a different direction. And especially a lot of more men, I think, what percentage of slaves were males?

McCusker: That's a good point. I never thought about that. Also, he was an outside-the-box thinker.

Von: Right.

McCusker: So he was like, you know what else I might—

Von: Literally.

McCusker: [Reading a passage that says "the gender ratio among slaves was around 179 males for every 100 females."] Okay. Whoa. It was 179. Damn, that's like China—

Von: For every 100 females.

McCusker: It's like China.

Von: So that's definitely a good way to meet dudes, probably.

McCusker: Yeah. Sausage party.

Von: So yeah, the Underground Railroad was a sausage party, dude.

McCusker: That's fucking bullshit. That's fucking bullshit. No, that's fucking bullshit.

Von: Yeah, that is bullshit, dude, because... Yeah, that's crazy. The fucking Underground Railroad was a sausage party. Oh, I bet dudes were hooking up, bro.

McCusker: Probably. Yeah. Once they got... Yeah, especially going to the East Coast. You get there. It's probably liberal as hell back then. Probably very not at all. But yeah, that's fucked up. I didn't know the ratio was so off.

Von: Me neither.

McCusker: I assumed it was one-to-one.

Von: Me too. Yeah. You just kind of think that. Isn't that funny? Your brain just kind of thinks that.

McCusker: Why? If you really think about that for two more seconds, you're like, what happened? There's a reason China has suppressed female births. You're like, how did that work out? There's no way they were being born at that rate of male to female.

Von: Right. They just chose to suppress it.

McCusker: Yeah. That's fucked up.

There you have it. Theo Von, who opened for the president in Qatar last month and sat down with the vice president a few days ago, believes Frederick Douglass was secretly gay and hooked up with men on the Underground Railroad.