Katie Porters political brand has always been built on confrontation, and it turns out her online life is no exception.
According to RedState, the former Democrat congresswoman and failed gubernatorial hopeful has quietly amassed a trail of blistering Yelp reviews over the years, unloading on everyone from a suburban massage parlor to a neighborhood pizza joint and a local cab company. While many of Californias leading Democrats were busy sprinkling five-star praise on friendly businesses, Porter was doing what she does best: lecturing, scolding, and turning routine customer complaints into multi-paragraph indictments of service, management, and basic competence.
The California Post reported that Porter targeted Massage Heights in Sherman Oaks with a lengthy, roughly 500-word broadside after a bad experience, accusing the business of both poor service and mistreatment of its workers. If you want consistent good service, and want to patronize a place that treats employees with respect, I would never recommend this, she wrote, before adding, I cannot continue in good conscience to be a patron, even though it is a very convenient location and a nice facility.
When the business pushed back and accused her of slander, Porter escalated rather than backing down, turning the dispute into a personal feud. Btw, after I posted this, Bill called up and left me a message saying that I had slandered his business and tauntingly asking What are you, a lawyer? she recounted, answering her own question with a flourish: Yes, in fact, I am one that did not get a massage she paid for.
The same hyper-aggrieved tone carried over into her review of Tony Pepperoni Pizzeria, where a late delivery became the basis for another public tongue-lashing. Horrible service on delivery. I ordered at 4:39. I am told 35-40 min. I call to check at 40 min. Driver on way. I call again at 5:3152 minutes later," Porter wrote, before adding, "He says driver will call me. He doesnt. I have 20 angry hungry kids! Pizza was decent when it arrived. But allow ample ample time.
Her meticulous time-stamping of every phone call and delay reads less like a casual review and more like a deposition, which is fitting for a lawyer-turned-politician who seems to treat every minor inconvenience as a federal case. The pizza, by her own admission, was decent, but the real point of the exercise appears to have been to shame the business in public and dramatize her own inconvenience.
Porter reserved some of her harshest language for Irvine Yellow Cab, where a missed early-morning pickup nearly caused her to miss a flight. I had a horrible experience with this company. I called the night before to book the cab for 6am. At 6:03, no cab so I called to check5 minutes away, she wrote, before detailing a cascade of failures.
Called again at 6:11put on hold and disconnected. 6:15, told that original driver had never responded to call do theyd try someone else. It would be 5 minutes, she continued, before describing the frantic scramble that followed: 6:28: Re-installed 3 kids car seats, loaded luggage in my car, and drive frantically to SNA. I was parked and trying up lug my 3 preschoolers and our stuff through parking lot for 7:15 flight whenat 6:35driver says he is a few blocks from my house. Ludicrous! I would have missed my flight but for it being delayed. I will never use this company again.
The tone of these reviews mirrors a broader cultural trend that even comedians have started to mock: the compulsion to live online and weaponize reviews over every slight. In his special Is It Me?, comedian Sebastian Maniscalco skewers this exact behavior, joking that when he has a bad meal, I'll tell her right there: 'Salmon sucked, let's get the f*** outta here.' That's it! We don't run home and tattle-tale on the restaurant. Who's got this time to write an 18-page essay on asparagus?
Porter, evidently, has that time and then some turning massages, pizza deliveries, and cab rides into sprawling essays of grievance. For a politician who built her image on whiteboard lectures and viral scoldings in congressional hearings, the Yelp persona fits seamlessly: the self-styled crusader who always assumes the worst of others and broadcasts it for maximum effect.
Her online behavior also dovetails with her real-world reputation on Capitol Hill and in California politics. Porter has long been known for what even some Democrats describe as unhinged outbursts, including a now-infamous leaked video in which she screams at a staffer to get out of my f***ing shot during a media appearance. In another incident, she was caught berating a reporter during an interview, further cementing her image as someone whose temper is never far from the surface.
Former colleagues and staff have quietly painted a similar picture, describing her as notoriously difficult to work for and prone to explosive tantrums over relatively minor issues. For a party that constantly preaches about civility and kindness, Porters pattern of behavior both online and off stands out as particularly hypocritical, yet it has rarely drawn serious scrutiny from the same media that obsess over the tone of conservative politicians.
By contrast, most of Californias other high-profile Democrats appear to have used Yelp the way ordinary people do: to leave quick, positive notes about local businesses. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and other prominent figures largely stuck to simple five-star ratings for restaurants, salons, dental offices, and cleaning services, avoiding the kind of public crusades Porter seems to relish.
There were exceptions, however, that reveal a similar instinct to lean on public office while complaining. Sen. Alex Padilla, then serving as Californias 32nd secretary of state, posted a scathing review of a hairstylist named "JESSICA" in all caps because she allegedly had a "very bad attitude" while cutting his sons hair, a move that raises its own questions about politicians using their status to intimidate small businesses.
That dynamic is hard to ignore: powerful elected officials and statewide officeholders publicly shaming ordinary workers and mom-and-pop shops over bad haircuts and late pizzas. For conservatives who believe in limited government and respect for private enterprise, the spectacle of Democrats using their platforms to browbeat service workers and local businesses is telling. It reflects a broader progressive mindset that sees regulation, public shaming, and top-down pressure as the default tools for getting their way.
When the California Post reached out to Porter about her reviews, she offered no apology, no reflection, and no hint of regret. Instead, she shrugged off the controversy with a dismissive, The Yelp reviews are what they are, a line that perfectly captures her refusal to take responsibility for her own conduct.
That blunt response underscores what many on the right have long argued about Porter: the persona is not an act, it is the reality. And Katie Porter is who she is, as the piece notes a politician who lectures everyone else about fairness and respect while publicly berating businesses, staffers, and anyone else who crosses her, then insisting that the problem is never her behavior but everyone elses failure to meet her standards.
Login