Rolling Stone’s Ranging Interview with Nick San Miguel
Comedian Nick San Miguel shows his true colors, in all of their brutal honesty, in this exclusive interview with Rolling Stone.
By: Tim Stone
May 27th, 2027
My introduction to Nick San Miguel did not come with a greeting or a hand shake, it came with an order.
“Take the keys, you’re driving. We’re stopping at Taco Bell on the way.”
It’s obvious that he doesn’t love the press. It’s been three years since he granted an interview to anyone. Three years since the incident that made him a lightning rod across the country when he openly berated Taylor Swift while hosting the Oscar’s and called her, “A smelly skank raising a whole new generation of smelly skanks.”
When Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce rose to challenge San Miguel in what seemed like The Slap 2.0, San Miguel ran like a coward around the stage as Kelce chased him, tearing his ACL in the process. He never played football again and two years later he, former head coach Andy Reid, and former teammate Patrick Mahomes were busted for running a sex trafficking ring with disabled dogs. San Miguel wound up looking like a hero.
But his reputation has been on a roller coaster ride these last several years. “People already have their preconceived notions of me,” San Miguel says as he slurps the last of his Baja Blast, “You’ve already got your article pre written. You’re just going to try to get me to say that I’d bang Melania Trump if I had one too many Baja blasts so you can slap a headline on it. I’m well aware of your game. So yeah, I would fuck her. There I said it. You’re welcome. I just paid for your new Tesla.”
San Miguel’s behavior didn’t phase me. He is well known for his dislike of journalists and the media. It’s an urban legend that San Miguel once told a journalist for the New York Times that he uses the “paper of record” as his toilet paper each and every day. The constant scratching of his rear end seems to lend some truth to the rumor.
My goal is not to get him to like me, but to simply lend some insight into his comedic mind and what has made him the hottest thing in comedy since Matt Rife, who has since also been implicated in the Reid-Mahomes-Kelce disabled dog sex trafficking ring. He began in Chicago as a deadpan comedian, but has since gone on to adopt an alpha persona that delights stadiums around the world. Critics compare him to a modern Andrew Dice Clay, supporters claim he is breaking down toxic masculinity in his act.
“It’s not ‘an act.’ This is who I am. I don’t perform. I channel The Spirit* when I’m up there. It’s out of body and it cannot be described to someone who has never done comedy.”
When I teasingly correct San Miguel and tell him that I did a few open mics in college, he opens the car door and rolls out, something he did several times throughout the interview. From the relatively few scratches or cuts he got it is clear this is something he does a lot.
“Sorry,” he explains, “That was just the saddest thing I’d ever heard up to that point so I figured I’d rather be dead than hear you say something else.”
I ask him what he thinks about the state of comedy. If anyone is doing anything interesting or if he thinks you can’t joke about certain things anymore.
“Rife was doing some interesting stuff before he started having sex with dogs or whatever. Same with Delia. I mean, I’ve sort of reached the point where I can say or do anything and there aren’t really consequences. It’s like our president says, I can shoot someone and people will still come and see me.”
Critics do point out that San Miguel’s rise has coincided with the second term of Donald Trump. Some believe his alpha persona, stool humps, and constant complaints about women have only given more fuel to irresponsible people. But San Miguel demurs when I bring this up.
“I don’t believe in politics. Or government. Or even society really. There’s this fascinating book called The Lone Wolf by Jordan Peterson. It may not even be out yet, him and I are really close. And he talks about how wolves make their beds every morning in the wild. They literally will like take the dirt and say to themselves, ‘I just started my day off with a win.’ It’s pretty fucking bad ass. Do you think that Joe Biden makes his bed every morning? No, because he’s dead. That’s why he lost. We don’t need government. Or rules. Or roads. Or even water. I think we need a return to when things were more raw and untamed…”He trails off before whispering, “I am so fucking high right now.”
Drugs have always been a part of San Miguel’s story. During the Swift outburst he admitted that he snorted DayQuil prior to going onstage. He has named former comedian John Mulaney as a dealer, and says that, “He still wears the suits and everything for the deals. It’s kind of cute. He tries to run bits by me before the deal. And I indulge him and go, ‘Yeah whatever that sounds great. No, yeah I think people wanna hear more about the Salt and Vinegar diner or whatever the fuck,’” San Miguel says while miming a self pleasure act.
We get fairly close to the venue. I ask him if it ever gets old, doing jokes in the same arenas night after night with few breaks.
“Would you ask Steph Curry if he gets sick of draining threes every night? Would you ask Brock Purdy if he gets sick of winning the Super Bowl every year? Please do not insult me anymore. I am literally saving people every time I get on stage. People need what I give them. People die if I don’t take the stage. So, to answer your question: no. I do not get sick of being a modern saint, a philosopher, a sage, and Jedi master. What I do is something you will never comprehend and it makes me sick that I have had to listen to your ignorance for the past 10 minutes.”
With that, he opens the car door yet again and rolls out. He walks the rest of the way to Dallas’s Finger Lickin’ Good Dome, home of the Cowboys. I watch every minute of his set. I see the sniper in the wings. I try to cry out but no sound exits my voice. I simply hear the scream of the audience and my heart breaks. Not for him, but for his fans. They believe that their idol and God was gunned down before their very eyes.
But I know the truth. Before he rolled out of the car, I asked San Miguel if he was working on anything new. He said that he was trying out a new bit that he really thought was “going to kill.” He winked multiple times and poked me in my oblique to really hammer home his meaning. Then he said something about how this would not be the first time a beloved icon was gunned down in Dallas and then bemoaned the fact that there are no comedians in the 27 club.
I do not know for sure whether San Miguel is dead or not. While most of me thinks he faked his death so get away from his life of fame, a non-insignificant part of me believes that he actually hired someone to murder him onstage. This is a guy that is so committed to the bit that he kept calling Marc Maron “Matt” for years even though he knew his name was Marc and even though Maron kept correcting him throughout San Miguel’s record-breaking 15 appearances on the WTF podcast until Maron hung himself due to San Miguel’s cruelty.
As far as a legacy goes, I do not know which one he leaves. For such a uniquely polarizing figure, and for such a uniquely American character, he will likely go down as a complicated figure. His legacy will be debated for ages.
I get back in my car at the end of the show after the mayhem of the assassination, real or staged. I put the car in reverse and my hand bumps a cup that was not there when I left. It’s a Baja Blast with a note on the top. “Thx. Think you have a future at this.-N” I have been writing for Rolling Stone since before San Miguel was born. One last joke from beyond the grave. Either literally, or the grave of stardom and infamy. Perhaps he has freed himself from a fate worse than death.
*According to San Miguel, “The Spirit” is a sort of supernatural phenomena comprising all the souls of deceased comedians that possesses him whenever he takes the stage. When I ask him if he believes in ghosts he asks if I have a gun so he can shoot me.