Anna Khachiyan

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Leonidovna and the family name is Khachiyan.
Anna Khachiyan
Анна Хачиян
Khachiyan in 2023
Born
Anna Leonidovna Khachiyan

(1985-08-23) August 23, 1985 (age 40)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Citizenship
  • Russia
  • United States
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Writer
  • podcaster
Notable workRed Scare (since 2018)
Children1
FatherLeonid Khachiyan

Anna Leonidovna Khachiyan (Russian: Анна Леонидовна Хачиян; born August 23, 1985)[1][2][3] is an American cultural critic,[4][5] writer,[6] and co-host of the Red Scare podcast with Dasha Nekrasova, based out of New York City.[7][8]

Early life

Khachiyan was born in Moscow, Soviet Union, on August 23, 1985.[2][3] In 1990, she immigrated to the United States with her parents and was raised in New Jersey.[9] Her father is the Soviet mathematician and Rutgers University professor Leonid Khachiyan and her mother is Olga Pischikova Reynberg.[10] She is of Armenian, Russian and Ashkenazi Jewish descent.[11][12]

Khachiyan graduated from South Brunswick High School in 2003.[13] She received the Patrick J. Quigley memorial scholarship from Rutgers University in 2006, studying economics and art history and graduating with honors.[14] She completed a master's degree in art history at New York University,[15] going on to pursue a PhD in Soviet architecture, before dropping out.[7][9]

Before Red Scare, Khachiyan worked odd jobs as a restaurant hostess,[16] illustrator[17] and actress.[18]

Career

On March 29, 2018, Khachiyan started the cultural commentary podcast Red Scare, with co-host and actress Dasha Nekrasova. The show was initially associated with the dirtbag left.[19][20][21][22] However, in recent years, Khachiyan has been identified more with the new right[23][24] as well as the subculture surrounding Dimes Square.[25][26][27][28] It covers current topics in American culture and politics in both a comedic and serious tone.

Khachiyan's commentary and critique of neoliberalism and feminism are influenced by historian Christopher Lasch,[29] social critic Camille Paglia,[7][20] and Michel Houellebecq.[4] She has described herself as "an old-school moralist in the style of Camille Paglia".[20]

In 2018, Khachiyan described Kanye West as "an artist who understands on an intuitive level that there's a difference between playing with aesthetic symbols and ascribing a moral weight to those symbols". She said that right-wing figures like Stephen Bannon, Roger Stone, Ann Coulter and Candace Owens are more "interesting" than those coming from the left, and that these right-wing female figures, though not feminists, "are definitely self-determined women, as disgusting as their politics may be".[4]

Khachiyan has been interviewed by Eric Weinstein and by Bret Easton Ellis on their respective podcasts.[30] She has also appeared on i24NEWS to discuss Russian-born convicted fraudster[31][32] Anna Delvey,[33] and as a speaker as part of Art Toronto's PLATFORM Speak Series.[34]

In 2020, Khachiyan and Red Scare became aligned with right-wing politics,[35][36][37] and supported Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election.[35] The American Mind identified the George Floyd protests as a turning point in which the podcast shifted towards right-wing figures such as Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin and "race realist"[37] Steve Sailer.[36] Khachiyan has praised Sailer's work, hoping that he would become "a household name".[38][36] In 2025, she told Curtis Yarvin: "We've always loved [Trump], even when we had to be down-low brothers about it."[39]

In 2022, Khachiyan met with billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters. Masters, until then president of the Thiel Foundation, called Red Scare "interesting", and hinted to Vanity Fair that it could receive funding from Thiel in the future.[40] Nekrasova and Khachiyan denied receiving any funding from Thiel.[41][time needed]

In September 2023, Khachiyan argued the affirmative in a public debate titled "Has the Sexual Revolution Failed?", co-sponsored by The Free Press and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).[42] She argued alongside Louise Perry that it had, against speakers Sarah Haider and Grimes.[43]

In a November 2024 discussion with Megyn Kelly on the topic of the Donald Trump's sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll and the accusations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, Khachiyan said that one of Trump's "best qualities" is that he "doesn't really lie", and that in contrast with the common belief that Trump frequently lies, "he's actually totally honest almost 100% of the time".[44]

In January 2025, after allegations of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman, she said, in reference to Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election, "Are we really still doing this? #MeToo was rejected at the ballot box!"[45]

In May 2025, Khachiyan supported a fundraiser for a woman who used the n-word against an eight-year-old child, saying: "I will support her on principle because of the importance of not letting the left dictate speech codes and torment everyone with gay race communism."[24][46]

In June 2025, Khachiyan expressed support for the Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and criticised Elon Musk for his conduct in the Trump–Musk feud, despite praising him: "We have to be grateful to Elon because he did buy Twitter, he was a top donor to the Trump campaign. [...] I think he really did move the needle in getting a lot of the other tech moguls like Bezos and Zuckerberg to come around to the right. But when he's going on the computer and talking about how Trump should exercise more gratitude, he sounds like an ungrateful immigrant."[47]

Personal life

On the February 13, 2021 episode of The Tim Dillon Show, Khachiyan publicly announced that she was eight months pregnant with a son.[48] The father was later confirmed as her then boyfriend, the composer and artist Eli Keszler.[49][50] Their son was born on March 28, 2021.[51]

Khachiyan suffers from adult-onset Still's disease, which she was diagnosed with after contracting COVID-19 in 2021.[52] She had previously questioned the efficacy of vaccines in the efforts to curb COVID-19, describing herself as becoming "an even more conservative Covid truther".[53]

Filmography

Year Film/Series Role Notes
2007 Why I Fired My Secretary short, screenplay
2014 Facing the Same Direction Alex short
2020 PVT Chat OWS Commentator
2021 The Scary of Sixty-First Ghislaine Maxwell doppelgänger[54]

References

  1. ^ Broomfield, Charlotte (April 17, 2019). "Red Scare, Don't Care". The Face. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Weinstein, Eric (host) (December 20, 2019). "17: Anna Khachiyan - Reconstructing the Mystical Feminine from the Ashes of 'The Feminine Mystique'". The Portal (Podcast).
  3. ^ a b Khachiyan, Anna [@annakhachiyan] (August 23, 2020). "Wow I share a birthday with the coolest, most doomed people" (Tweet). Retrieved January 2, 2023 – via Twitter.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  4. ^ a b c Khachiyan, Anna (December 26, 2018). "Anna Khachiyan Shares Her Gut Reactions on Everything from Toxic Masculinity to 'Vanderpump Rules'". Interview (Interview). New York City, New York. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  5. ^ Myers, Fraser (July 4, 2019). "Meet the anti-woke left". Spiked.
  6. ^ Khachiyan, Anna (March 19, 2018). Pepi, Mike (ed.). "Art Won't Save Us". Open Space. No. 8, Heavy Machinery. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
  7. ^ a b c Malone, Noreen (October 25, 2018). "Red Scare Leans into Nothing". The Cut. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  8. ^ Arbuthnot, Leaf (February 7, 2020). "Meet the 'ladies' of Red Scare, the most gleefully offensive podcast on the internet". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  9. ^ a b Pinsky, Drew (host) (December 6, 2022). "Anna Khachiyan". The Dr. Drew Podcast (Podcast).
  10. ^ "In Memoriam: Leonid Khachiyan". Rutgers University | School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016.
  11. ^ Khachiyan, Anna [@annakhachiyan] (December 4, 2019). "I had such a shambolic, dysfunctional upbringing my parents didn't even bother to teach me chess — unheard of and frankly shameful for Russian family of Armenian and Ashkenazi origins lol!" (Tweet). Retrieved January 2, 2023 – via Twitter.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  12. ^ Khachiyan, Anna [@annakhachiyan] (September 15, 2024). "Here's my 23andMe so we can finally put this issue to rest" (Tweet). Retrieved September 25, 2024 – via X (formerly Twitter).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  13. ^ "South Brunswick High School". The Central New Jersey Home News. June 26, 2003. p. D10. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
  14. ^ "Welcome to the Department of Art History | Undergraduate Awards". Rutgers University | School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Art History.
  15. ^ "Anna Khachiyan | New York University". nyu.academia.edu.
  16. ^ Khachiyan, Anna; et al. (November 9, 2018). Hertling, Pati; Azimi, Negar (eds.). "Number Six". Deadlines and Divine Distractions.
  17. ^ Buyanovsky, Dan (October 6, 2014). "Untitled (An Oral History of D'Angelo)". Vice.
  18. ^ Cule, Maja (November 4, 2014). "An interview with Maja Cule". atractivoquenobello (Interview). Interviewed by Kevin Allen. Archived from the original on September 3, 2016.
  19. ^ Bowles, Nellie (February 29, 2020). "The Pied Pipers of the Dirtbag Left Want to Lead Everyone to Bernie Sanders". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  20. ^ a b c Marriott, James (December 10, 2019). "Red Scare, the politically incorrect podcast that's wooing liberal millennials". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  21. ^ Spies, Michelle (September 25, 2019). "I Made the Internet Vote to Determine the Worst Fan Base. Here's What I Learned". Vulture.
  22. ^ Martinez, Ignacio (June 26, 2019). "'Praxis Girl' and how extremely online drama led to a Marxist meme". The Daily Dot.
  23. ^ Goldberg, Michelle (April 25, 2022). "Opinion | The Awful Advent of Reactionary Chic". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  24. ^ a b Molloy, Parker (May 6, 2025). "How Calling a Child the N-Word Made One Woman $700,000". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved June 16, 2025.
  25. ^ Dai, Serena (August 10, 2022). "Do You Need to Care About Dimes Square? Probably Not". Bon Appétit. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  26. ^ Meltzer, Marisa (July 25, 2022). "Dimes Square Gets the Hotel It Deserves". The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  27. ^ Freeman, Nate (June 13, 2022). "What Was Dimes Square?". Vanity Fair. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  28. ^ Yost, Julia (August 9, 2022). "New York's Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church". The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  29. ^ McLaughlin, Rosanna (January 22, 2024). "Camille Paglia: Elite Trolling". ArtReview. Retrieved September 4, 2025.
  30. ^ Ellis, Bret Easton (host) (August 16, 2019). "8/16/19 - Anna Khachiyan". The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (Podcast). Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  31. ^ Ransom, Jan; Palmer, Emily (April 25, 2019). "Fake Heiress Who Swindled N.Y.'s Elite Is Found Guilty". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 15, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
  32. ^ Pullman, Laura (March 7, 2021). "'Fake Heiress' Anna Delvey on her time in prison and what she'll do next". The Times. Retrieved June 3, 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  33. ^ Holmes, Helen (June 8, 2018). "Why Do We Love Grifters? Because We're Secretly Jealous of Them". The New York Observer.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  34. ^ Heather, Rosemary (October 23, 2018). "Why Trump is able to neutralize #Resistance art". NOW Magazine.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  35. ^ a b Jibril, Halima (December 12, 2024). "The pushback against wokeness – and what it's cost us". Dazed. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
  36. ^ a b c McConnell, Scott (March 29, 2023). "Soviet America's Sweethearts". The American Mind. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
  37. ^ a b Joyce, Kathryn; Sharlet, Jeff (December 12, 2023). "Losing the Plot: The "Leftists" Who Turn Right". In These Times. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
  38. ^ Sailer, Steve (January 17, 2024). ""If I had my way, Steve Sailer would be a household name. Now that his greatest hits are finally under one roof, it's easier than ever to imagine a reality where he is." -- Anna Khachiyan, co-host "Red Scare"". Twitter. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
  39. ^ Passage TV (July 29, 2025). Red Scare Live from NYC ft. Curtis Yarvin. Event occurs at 11:08. Retrieved November 17, 2025 – via YouTube.
  40. ^ Pogue, James (April 20, 2022). "Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets". Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  41. ^ Nekrasova, Dasha; Khachiyan, Anna (April 25, 2022). "Vanity Unfair". Red Scare (Podcast).
  42. ^ "FIRE sponsors debate with the Free Press: Has the Sexual Revolution Failed?". Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. July 31, 2023. Archived from the original on September 25, 2024.
  43. ^ "The Free Press | Has The Sexual Revolution Failed?". www.flaunt.com. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
  44. ^ Kelly, Megyn (January 8, 2025). Hilarious Stories About Trump and the Losers Who Hate Him, with Megyn and the Red Scare Hosts (Video). YouTube. Event occurs at 3:52. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
  45. ^ Hood, Jamie (June 17, 2025). "Anti-Anti-Rape". The Drift. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
  46. ^ Sommer, Will (May 6, 2025). "She Called a 5-Year-Old the N-Word. And the online right rallied to her side". www.thebulwark.com. Retrieved June 16, 2025.
  47. ^ Kelly, Megyn (June 6, 2025). What's Behind the Elon vs. Trump Drama, and Insane Leftist Arguments, with Ben Shapiro and Red Scare (Video). YouTube. Event occurs at 52:48. Retrieved July 6, 2025.
  48. ^ Dillon, Tim (host) (February 14, 2021). "#239 - Anna Khachiyan". The Tim Dillon Show (Podcast).
  49. ^ Keszler, Eli; Khachiyan, Anna (April 14, 2020). "6 Feet Apart" (Podcast). Elara FM.
  50. ^ van Zuylen-Wood, Simon (July 29, 2022). "Platforming a Platformer of the Deplatformed". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on February 22, 2023.
  51. ^ Khachiyan, Anna [@annakhachiyan]; (April 1, 2021). "My pup <3". Retrieved April 5, 2021 – via Instagram.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  52. ^ Khachiyan, Anna [@annakhachiyan] (January 9, 2022). "Fwiw I was diagnosed with something called Adult Onset Still's Disease. If you google Still's + Covid-19 you can find studies reporting cases triggered by the vaccine as well as the virus. Either way how much of an unspeakable loser do you have to be to hornily gloat over this?" (Tweet). Retrieved June 15, 2024 – via Twitter.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  53. ^ Rabkin, Eugene (January 7, 2023). "Podcast Overload". The New York Times. Retrieved June 15, 2024.
  54. ^ Blauvelt, Christian (March 2, 2021). "'The Scary of Sixty-First' Review: An Unforgettable 'Eyes Wide Shut' Revision for the QAnon Age". IndieWire.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Khachiyan