Rachel Maddow returned to MSNBC on Thursday to reveal that her partner, Susan Mikula, contracted Covid-19. The host went off the air two weeks ago to quarantine, just as the network was delivering the results of the presidential election.
“If you know anything about me off of TV — if you know me personally at all — then the foremost thing you probably know about me is that I’m in love,” Maddow told the camera, still in quarantine. “Susan and I have been together for 21 years. It was love at first sight. That has never waned. She is the center of my universe. And it’s not even like she’s the sun and I’m a planet. It’s more desperate and pitiful than that. It’s more like she’s the planet and I’m the satellite.”
“My relationship with Susan at the end of the day is the only thing I would kill or die for without hesitation,” she continued. “Susan has been sick with Covid these past couple of weeks. And at one point, we really thought it was a possibility that it might kill her — and that’s why I’ve been away.”
Maddow: Don't get this thing. Do whatever you can to keep from getting it.
Rachel Maddow reveals that her partner, Susan, tested positive for Covid-19 and is still recovering, and implores viewers to consider their loved ones when they calculate their own Covid-19 risk. pic.twitter.com/oUz2DBLG63
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) November 20, 2020
Maddow revealed that Mikula — who tested positive two weeks ago — is slowly recovering. While Maddow herself has tested with negative results, she’s been separated from her partner all this time. “I don’t know you at home except through this medium,” she told viewers. “But just believe me. Whatever you have calculated into your life as acceptable risk — something that you’re willing to go through in terms of this virus because statistically, hey, it probably will be fine for you and your loved ones — I’m just here to tell you to recalibrate that. Frankly, the country needs you to recalibrate that. Because broadly speaking, there’s no room for you in the hospital anymore.”
“What you need to know is whoever is the most important person in your life — whoever you most love and most care for and most cherish in the world — that’s the person who you may lose,” she added. “Or who you may spend weeks up [with] all night, freaking out about and calling doctors all night long, trying to figure out how to keep that person breathing and out of the hospital.”
Maddow also touched on the upcoming holiday, for which the Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention urged Americans to avoid travel. “Do whatever you can to keep from getting it,” she said. “For Thanksgiving next week, you really are going to just have it at home without people coming over. And yeah, that is going to suck, but that is going to suck so much less than you or somebody in your family getting this and getting sick. Trust me.”