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On Dec. 6, 2023, the X account @DesireeAmerica4 posted that actor Mark Wahlberg had said something noteworthy in regard to Hollywood celebrities. The post's caption read, "Mark Wahlberg calls out the Hollywood liberal Democrats. He said, 'If you don't like the USA, please leave and take your comrades Alec Baldwin, Cher, Jennifer Lawrence, Miley Cyrus, Barbra Streisand, Matt Damon, Oprah, and Colin Kaepernick with you.' Who agrees?"
As of this writing, the post on X had racked up nearly 10,000 reposts and over 72,000 likes.
However, despite all of the users' interactions with the post, the truth was that this quote did not come from Wahlberg. The person who authored the quote was a writer on the America's Freedom Fighters (AFF) website who had opined about an interview that Wahlberg had once given in 2016.
A longer version of the same quote was also previously posted in 2022 on iFunny.co alongside photos of both Wahlberg and former U.S. President Donald Trump. It read as follows:
ConservativeGuy NewsBeat
[Mark] Wahlberg: "If you don't like the USA, please leave and take your comrades Alec Baldwin, Cher, Madonna, Rosie [O'Donnell], Jennifer Lawrence, Miley Cyrus, Mark Ruffalo, Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, Matt Damon, Oprah [Winfrey], Colin Kaepernick and the whole lot of rich losers with you. The U.S. has an open door policy that swings both ways. Leave the rest of us alone to rebuild our nation as it was intended by our forefathers."
We traced the beginnings of this rumor about Wahlberg back more than seven years before the supposed quote was shared on X.
On Nov. 29, 2016, the Task & Purpose website published an interview with Wahlberg about his film, "Patriots Day." The movie was released in U.S. theaters on Jan. 13, 2017. (We previously published an article about this interview.)
During the interview, Wahlberg said that he didn't believe "out of touch" celebrities should talk about politics and that "a lot of Hollywood is living in a bubble":
“A lot of celebrities did, do, and shouldn’t,” he told Task & Purpose last week, at a swanky luncheon in New York, held on behalf of his upcoming film “Patriots Day.” We were talking about the parade of actors and musicians who lined up to denounce Donald Trump in the months and weeks leading up to Election Day.
“You know, it just goes to show you that people aren’t listening to that anyway,” he continued. “They might buy your CD or watch your movie, but you don’t put food on their table. You don’t pay their bills. A lot of Hollywood is living in a bubble. They’re pretty out of touch with the common person, the everyday guy out there providing for their family. Me, I’m very aware of the real world. I come from the real world and I exist in the real world. And although I can navigate Hollywood and I love the business and the opportunities it’s afforded me, I also understand what it’s like not to have all that.”
Two days after Task & Purpose published their interview, Breitbart.com reported about Wahlberg's remarks with the headline, "Mark Wahlberg Tells 'Out of Touch' Celebrities to Shut Up About Politics."
Then, on an unknown later date, an unnamed author on the America's Freedom Fighters (AFF) website published an article about the interview, citing the story on Breitbart.com. It was that unknown AFF author who was the person who had written the quote that was later misattributed with Wahlberg's name:
Mark Wahlberg…an actor that can have our theater bucks.
Americans have had enough of it. The general public doesn’t give a rip about what the Hollywood celebs think. When we pay our hard earned money to be entertained, that’s all we want, a few moments out of time—not a lecture on the entertainer’s politics.
If you make $10 million a movie, have homes all over the planet and probably never even finished high school, how can you possibly be in a position to say Obamacare is great for the rest of us? You don’t have to pay rising premiums for inadequate coverage.
If you don’t like the USA, please leave and take your comrades Alec Baldwin, Cher, Madonna, Rosie, Jennifer Lawrence, Miley Cyrus, Mark Ruffalo, Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, Matt Damon, Oprah, Colin Kaepernick and the whole lot of rich losers with you. The U.S. has an open door policy that swings both ways. Leave the rest of us alone to rebuild our nation as it was intended by our forefathers.
For further reading, we previously reported about another Wahlberg rumor that claimed he had supposedly spoken publicly to provide his thoughts about the 2023 child sex-trafficking film, "Sound of Freedom."
“BOOM: Mark Wahlberg BREAKS SILENCE And Slams Every Trump Hating Celebrity In EPIC Interview.” America’s Freedom Fighters, 8 Oct. 2020, https://americasfreedomfighters.com/boom-mark-wahlberg-breaks-silence-and-slams-every-trump-hating-celebrity-in-epic-interview/.
Gell, Aaron. “Mark Wahlberg Thinks Celebrities Need to Shut Up About Politics.” Task & Purpose, 29 Nov. 2016, https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/mark-wahlberg-thinks-celebrities-need-shut-politics-2/.
Hudson, Jerome. “Mark Wahlberg Tells Celebrities to Shut Up About Politics.” Breitbart, 1 Dec. 2016, https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2016/12/01/mark-wahlberg-politically-active-celebrities-touch-common-person/.
LaCapria, Kim. “Mark Wahlberg Expresses Disdain for Hollywood’s Political Involvement.” Snopes, 3 Dec. 2016, https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/12/03/mark-wahlberg-expresses-disdain-hollywoods-political-involvement/.
Liles, Jordan. “Did Mark Wahlberg Comment About ‘Sound of Freedom’ and Hollywood, Saying ‘Enough Is Enough’?” Snopes, 3 Aug. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wahlberg-sound-of-freedom-hollywood/.
Mike_10101. “ConservativeGuy NewsBeat Wahlberg: ‘If You Don’t like the USA, Please Leave.’” iFunny, 11 Sept. 2022, https://ifunny.co/picture/conservativeguy-newsbeat-wahlberg-if-you-don-t-like-the-usa-9GiNxfgr9.
Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.
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