AOC engaged to longtime boyfriend Riley Roberts
AOC will see you at the altar.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is engaged to longtime boyfriend Riley Roberts, she confirmed on Twitter.
“It’s true! Thank you all for the well wishes,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
The couple were engaged in Puerto Rico last month but haven’t set a date as they take “some space to savor this time before diving into planning,” the congresswoman told Business Insider.
Rumors started circulating earlier in the day when Ocasio-Cortez was photographed by The Hill sporting an engagement ring.
The 32-year-old Queens Democrat is an outspoken member of the left-leaning Squad, but has kept details of her relationship mostly out of the public eye.
The two came from different corners of the country. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx and moved at a young age with her parents to Yorktown in suburban Westchester County where she attended public schools until she graduated high school in 2007. Ocasio-Cortez’s father was an architect mother was born in Puerto Rico and cleaned houses.
Roberts grew up in a wealthy area of Paradise Valley, Ariz., the son of a real-estate agent.
The two reportedly met while students at Boston University, where Roberts graduated with dual degrees in sociology and finance. Roberts moved back home to Arizona shortly after graduation but the couple rekindled their romance in New York a few years later.
The congresswoman, who graduated with degrees in international relations and economics, told Vogue in 2018 that they met at a weekly chat hosted by the university’s dean “in true nerdy fashion.”
Roberts, a 33-year-old web developer, helped his girlfriend collect signatures to put her on the election ballot in her improbable first run for Congress in 2018, when she unseated 10-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley as an insurgent candidate.
During the campaign, he was paid $6,000 for fundraising services by Brand New Congress, a PAC that helped launch her candidacy. The group was founded by Saikat Chakrabarti, who went on to serve as the congresswoman’s chief of staff.
In August, AOC was asked about maintaining a healthy relationship while in the public eye in an Instagram live feed. She turned to Roberts to answer.
“We spend mornings together, spend quality time together, browse TikTok together,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s 8.5 million followers on Instagram have often got a glimpse of Roberts on her feed. She also stood up for her partner after the pair were criticized for eating out in Miami Beach with no masks while New York still had a COVID-19 mask mandate in effect.
Steve Cortes, a former campaign advisor for Donald Trump, and other GOPers took issue with Roberts showing “his gross pale male feet in public” by wearing sandals. The politician called the Republicans “creepy weirdos” for their “obsession with Riley’s feet.”