Netting 30 million views on Instagram and TikTok and having more than 200,000 followers across the platforms is a social media dream come true for many. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come without trolls who make outlandish accusations. Luckily they sometimes come up against comedians.

A few trolls accused recently accused comedian and podcast host Kevin McCaffrey of visiting “Epstein island,” Jeffrey Epstein’s private retreat in the Virgin Islands. He immediately found the comedic gold in those claims.

“First off, if you’re there [on Epstein island] you’re probably a horrific person,” he says, “but my God, what a delusional compliment to my career just to think I’m making that kind of money!”

Comedy fans in Northwest Arkansas may remember McCaffrey from his appearance at The Grove in Lowell last year. He will be coming back to the club on Jan. 26-27 to record an album to be released later this year.

His latest X drama will certainly give him material. He says the accusations connecting him to Epstein were a response to a joke he made about pro quarterback Aaron Rodgers on social media.

“The most ardent Aaron Rodgers defenders aren’t terribly based in facts. They just assume by being in show business at all that you’re more connected to some sort of, I don’t know, like billionaires’ cabal or secret society,” he says during a phone interview from his two-bedroom apartment in Queens, N.Y.

Not too long before this incident, he went viral for a TikTok video of a heckler at his show who stormed out after getting booed by the crowd. She then stormed back into the club when she realized that she left her mother at the table. He didn’t even have to write a joke about that.

“If I was teaching a college class on how to handle hecklers, the Twitter stuff would be like 101, and then live would be 201. Because on Twitter and in real life, if someone’s coming at you angrily, that’s not a smart person or a funny person,” McCaffrey says. “So the first thing you do is don’t go too hard back at them. You just ask them to clarify what they mean. That will give you so much more to work with and give you a moment to think.”

Thankfully, he says, hecklers are rare.

“Pop culture, and certainly social media, makes it seem like they’re things that are happening far more than they are. People post those interactions because [it allows] you to put something funny out there without having to burn material that you want to be a surprise in a live setting,” he says.

What’s surprising is that McCaffrey gets heckled at all. He’s not terribly edgy.

“I don’t think I’m that adversarial. My first album was called ‘Nice and Drunk’ because that’s just two things that I tend to be,” he says.

McCaffrey made his TV debut in 2013 on “The Letterman Show,” where he worked as the show’s warm-up comic, and has had regular spots on truTV’s “World’s Dumbest” and “Comedy Knockout.”

He recorded his first album at Zanies Comedy Club, in his old hometown of Chicago, in 2018. Growing up, he was obsessed with Letterman and Conan O’Brien. In college, he started hosting a late-night talk show, and he says that it led to meeting some of his best friends and his wife, Jaimie McCaffrey, who works on the Howard Stern show.

For the last 13-14 years, McCaffrey has toured as a full-time comic. He also hosts “Celebrate!,” a weekly interview show on Sirius XM. He hosted the podcast “The Bridgerton Bros” with his best friend and comedian Jon Daly (not the local golfer). They also started another podcast, “Sex and the Cidiots,” in 2019.

“We’re just two straight married guys who watched ‘Sex and the City’ for the first time in 2019, and that was great. And we have a bunch of fun fans from that,” he says. He’s recording the album at The Grove while waiting for his co-host to finish a re-watch of “Girls” for their next podcast.

Keep up with McCaffrey on social media @kevinmcaff.

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FAQ

Kevin McCaffrey

WHEN — 6:30 p.m. Jan. 26 and 6:30 & 9 p.m. Jan. 27

WHERE — The Grove Comedy Club, 808 S. Bloomington St. in Lowell

COST — $21.90

INFO — grovecomedy.com