Masked Singer contestant John Schneider could be under Secret Service investigation after saying Biden should be ‘publicly hung’

Former Dukes of Hazzard star and current Masked Singer contestant John Schneider may be facing a Secret Service investigation after sharing a social media post calling for President Joe Biden to be “publicly hung.”

Earlier this week, Schneider was unmasked on the popular Fox singing competition show, performing Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful” while disguised as a donut. But the 63-year-old actor later made headlines after he shared a post on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, accusing the president of being a traitor and calling for him to be publicly executed.  

“Mr. President, I believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly hung,” Schneider wrote in the since-deleted post. “Your son too. Your response is..? Sincerely, John Schneider.”

On Friday, Deadline posted a story suggesting that the Secret Service has opened a probe into Schneider’s comments. A spokesperson for the Secret Service tells EW that they are “aware of the comments made by Mr. Schneider,” but “as a practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence.”

“We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees,” the spokesperson continued.

Schneider has since walked back his comments, denying that he threatened the president. "Seriously, folks? This is my final comment on this,” he said in a statement provided to EW on Thursday. “I neither said nor implied any such thing. Despite headlines claiming otherwise, in my post, I absolutely did not call for an act of violence or threaten a U.S. president as many other celebrities have done in the past. I suggest you re-read my actual post and pay attention to the words before believing this nonsense."

"It's my position, which I am entitled to have, that some of our nation’s leaders in Washington have lost their way, and corruption runs rampant, both on our nation's borders and abroad,” he continued. “Transparency and accountability must happen in order for our constitutional republic to survive. There is no threat implied or otherwise in that statement."

Earlier this week, in an interview conducted prior to his reveal on The Masked Singer, Schneider told EW that performing as the Donut “helped me heal” after his wife, Alicia Allain Schneider, died in February.

“I know there's a lot of people out there who are grieving, and I like to think that story that TMS chose to underline for me is helping other people get through, not only get through their grief, but get through their grief during the holidays,” Schneider said. “This is my first Christmas, my first New Year's without Alicia right here by my side. So this is a hard time. But now, I mean now that if people know that it was me, I think I'm going to usher into a whole new area of healing because people have said that they feel better for having heard what I was talking about on the show.”

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