Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is keeping quiet about her relationship status with fiancé Riley Roberts amid rumors they have called off their engagement.
“I don’t comment on my private life, but thank you,” Ocasio-Cortez, 36, told a New York Post reporter on Wednesday, August 12, when asked if the couple are “still together.”
The reporter pushed for more, asking whether Ocasio-Cortez’s mother would be getting her “wish” of seeing her daughter marry Roberts, 38, but the politician once again dodged the question.
“Again, I don’t comment on my private life, but thank you,” Ocasio-Cortez replied while walking her dog on the street.
The journalist tried for a third time, asking, “Is there anything you can tell us about the relationship?”
Ocasio-Cortez remained tight-lipped, responding, “No, I’m sorry, thank you.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks come one day after TMZ reported that she and Roberts broke up about two years ago. The outlet cited Puck’s chief Washington correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell as the first to report the alleged split.
Caldwell, for her part, initially tweeted the breakup news on Tuesday, August 11, when commenting on Ocasio-Cortez’s recent decision to freeze her eggs.
“AOC and Roberts broke up about two years ago. Perhaps that’s why she’s freezing her eggs,” Caldwell wrote via X.
The journalist later clarified her statements, telling her followers that she was “told by a reputable Democratic source about 18 months ago that [AOC’s] engagement was called off.”
Caldwell claimed via X that “AOC stopped wearing her engagement ring several months before that” and there have been “no public photos of her and Riley together in recent history.”
“Maybe they have gotten back together?” Caldwell pondered in the post. “I have no idea. Her office has not confirmed nor denied the status of her relationship.”
She concluded, “Honestly I thought that her calling off the engagement was much more widely known when I posted my original tweet.”
Us has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez for comment.
Ocasio-Cortez met Roberts as an undergrad at Boston University before they got engaged in 2022, according to a GQ profile published that September.
The Democratic representative confirmed her engagement in May 2022, telling her fans on X that the rumors about her relationship status were “true!”
“We got engaged last month in my family’s hometown in Puerto Rico,” Ocasio-Cortez told Business Insider at the time. “No future details yet, we’re taking some space to savor this time before diving into planning.”
While Ocasio-Cortez has kept much of her life with Roberts private, she has been opening up about her parenting plans in recent weeks after deciding to document her egg-freezing journey.
“I want to share with you all a decision that is very personal that I have made that has taken me time to consider, weigh and save up for,” she shared via her Instagram Stories on Saturday, August 8. “And it is of a sensitive matter and a personal matter and usually I keep my private life quite private, but I have made the decision to start freezing my eggs.”
Ocasio-Cortez — who is often talked about as a possible future frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nominee — noted that her career ambitions did play a part in her decision.
“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life and if people want to make assumptions about my decision, let them make those assumptions – I feel empowered to make this choice,” she continued. “I think it’s a very privileged position that I’ve been able to be able to make. And it’s also a result of, I think, changes in technology that have also made it more financially accessible.”
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