On April 16, MTSU’s chapter of Turning Point USA welcomed Leigh-Allyn Baker, the actress who played Amy Duncan in “Good Luck Charlie” and Ellen in “Will and Grace,” to talk about cancel culture, motherhood, her life in Tennessee and the power of speaking her mind.
Spectators packed the Keathley University Center theater to welcome Baker and hear how her opinions on government involvement in public health resulted in her being “canceled,” or when a public figure’s reputation or social standing is damaged after they have said or done something others deem offensive.
In 2020, Baker replied to a post on Twitter, now X, from former President Joe Biden. In the post, he was pictured wearing a mask with a caption reading “Wear a mask.”
“No, thank you. It’s not law. Just an overreaching suggestion. But you do you,” Baker wrote on her now-deleted profile.
The reply sparked outrage, Baker said. She received death and rape threats, and she was accused of being a “homophobic Trump-loving racist.”
“The number one way to get yourself canceled is to pick a fight with big pharma,” Baker said. “I’m just not going to comply with any medical mandates ever. This is one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. It is not one nation under government with liberty and justice for those who comply.”
Baker said that she has always stood firm in her beliefs. She decided to begin speaking out against California’s strict COVID-19 vaccine protocols after her children had physical reactions to their childhood vaccinations.
Her children would have died if they got another vaccine, Baker said.
Her two-month-old developed encephalitis, a condition that causes the brain to swell, hours after receiving an unspecified vaccine, Baker said. Since then, both her children have received medical exemptions from vaccines.
“The fact of the matter is that you should never want to allow the government to have a say in a medical injection in your body,” Baker said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Baker moved to the South, trading Hollywood for Williamson County, Tennessee.
“I made it 58 days of lockdown,” Baker said. “And then I decided ‘I don’t like being told what to do,’ and I wasn’t going to live my life like that.”
Baker spoke strongly of her beliefs in a small government. She said that she never saw the current political unrest as “us vs. them, left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican.”
“I look at it as ‘we the people’ versus this tiny group of elites,” Baker said. “… And I’m on team ‘we the people’.”
During a Q&A, students expressed their admiration for Baker. They thanked her for her role in their childhood as “America’s mom” when she played Amy Duncan.
Carley Ranta, chair of MTSU’s chapter of TPUSA, called it “the perfect night.”
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