Britt McHenry Out at State Department After Drink-Throwing Incident at Wizards Game

There are a lot of ways to lose a government job. Very few of them start with a cup flying through the stands at a Washington Wizards home opener.

Britt McHenry, the former ESPN reporter turned Trump administration press advisor, is out at the State Department, Front Office Sports first reported Friday. The end came a day after video of her hurling a drink at a fan at Capital One Arena tore across the internet, and it came barely a month after she started the job.

McHenry told Front Office Sports that she signed a resignation letter. A State Department spokesperson, asked about her status, told the outlet the department does not comment on internal personnel matters, the same line the agency gave Page Six. So the official version is a signature and a no-comment. The unofficial version, according to a source who spoke to Page Six, is blunter: she was forced to resign.

The night it went sideways

The setting was supposed to be a feel-good one for D.C. basketball. Wednesday, Oct. 21, was the Wizards' home opener, and the opponent was the Milwaukee Bucks, which meant a homecoming for Kyle Kuzma, the former Wizards forward now playing in Milwaukee. Washington won the game, 128-116. Almost nobody is talking about that part.

TMZ broke the story Thursday with video showing McHenry tossing a beverage at someone seated near her. A second angle TMZ obtained later that day filled in what happened before the cup left her hand. In it, fans in her section can be heard calling her "crazy" and "racist," and a chant of "Get her out!" builds as an usher appears to ask her to leave her seat. According to TMZ's description of that footage, someone behind her threw a drink in her direction as she stood up, and McHenry grabbed a cup and fired it back.

Then came the exit, which was its own piece of theater. Rally towels and other items rained toward her as she worked her way out of the row with a male guest, boos following her up the steps. McHenry did not exactly slink away. She blew kisses and waved to the crowd. Video also captured her arguing with a security guard near an arena entrance, according to TMZ and The Washington Times.

Her side of the story

McHenry's camp has a very different framing, and it deserves to be stated plainly, because it is the only explanation on the record for why any of this started.

Sources close to McHenry told TMZ that the people sitting behind her and her guest were making inappropriate comments about Winnie Harlow, the model who is engaged to Kuzma. Those same sources claimed the group directed "inappropriate and misogynistic" remarks at McHenry herself to bait her, and that things were thrown at her too. Page Six's source went further, alleging a heckler was saying Kuzma "plays terribly because his girlfriend's ugly," and that McHenry told the man to "ease up" before the crowd turned on her.

None of those claims about what the fans said has been independently confirmed, and they come from people in McHenry's corner. Her sources also told TMZ that she was not kicked out, insisting she left on her own to go to the bar while her guest stayed for the rest of the game. The video of an usher and a security guard directing her toward the exit tells a messier story, and that gap is a big part of why this clip refused to die.

Promoted and gone in a day?

Here is the detail that turns an embarrassing viral moment into a genuinely wild timeline. An insider told Page Six that McHenry had been promoted on Wednesday, the same day as the game, to lead external affairs and press for Under Secretary Jacob Helberg's team. Page Six reported she had originally been hired as a press advisor covering Europe and Africa.

"She was promoted and fired within 24 hours," the source told Page Six.

That account has not been confirmed by the State Department, which, again, is not talking. But if it holds, it might be the shortest victory lap in recent Washington memory.

How she got here

For sports fans, McHenry is a familiar face with a complicated history. She covered the NFL for ESPN from 2014 to 2017, according to Front Office Sports, and was among the network's layoffs in April 2017, as The Washington Times noted. From there she moved into conservative media, working as a commentator at Fox News from 2018 until 2022. TMZ has also described her past work with Fox Nation.

She confirmed in September that she had accepted a position as a press advisor at the State Department, per The Washington Times. That made her one of the more recognizable sports-media names to take a role inside the administration. It also made her a public figure whose every move at a public event was going to be filmed, clipped and posted, especially in a city where plenty of people in the arena work in or around politics.

Why it hit so hard

Strip away the politics for a second and look at what this actually is: a fan confrontation in the stands at an NBA game. Those happen every week. Usually they produce a couple of ejections, a viral clip and a news cycle that lasts about as long as a timeout.

This one had every accelerant available. A former national TV reporter. A current administration job. A crowd that clearly recognized her and was hostile before anything was thrown. A celebrity angle in Harlow and Kuzma. And multiple camera angles that let everyone on the internet play replay official. Add a press advisor, whose literal job is managing how a story plays, becoming the story herself, and the clip was always going to travel.

There is also an uncomfortable truth in how quickly it ended. Whatever was said in that section, and McHenry's sources insist she was provoked, the footage of the cup leaving her hand was the only thing most people needed to see. In a job built on staying out of the headlines, the headline was the problem.

What's next

For now, the record is thin on the official side. The State Department will not discuss it. McHenry has acknowledged signing a resignation letter but, as of Friday afternoon, had not offered a fuller public account of the night beyond what her sources have told reporters. Nobody has said whether arena officials or the team will take any further action.

The Wizards got their opening-night win over Kuzma and the Bucks. McHenry got a two-day news cycle she will not be able to outrun anytime soon, and a resignation letter to go with it.

Front Office Sports first reported McHenry's departure from the State Department. Additional reporting from TMZ, Page Six and The Washington Times.

Cover photo: Keith Allison / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons, cropped to 16:9 by Undrafted (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Britt_McHenry_Lions_at_Redskins_August_20_2015.jpg). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/