Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knew her decision to jab a syringe into her stomach on camera would attract some scrutiny. But it also put a spotlight on aspects of her private life—including her and her fiancé’s quiet split.
In a video shared on social media, Ocasio-Cortez, 36, announced that she is freezing her eggs by showing herself taking one of her hormone injections.
“Don’t be weird about this, even though I know all of you will be,” Ocasio-Cortez correctly quipped.
Amid the conservative firestorm that ensued over the sheer nerve of the Democratic Socialist to flaunt her stomach, questions were also raised about her longtime partner, Riley Roberts. A Puck reporter later wrote that the pair had split up about 18 months ago, two years after they were engaged.
A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez, a rumored 2028 contender, did not respond to a request for comment. When asked about Roberts after being accosted by a New York Post reporter outside her apartment in Queens, New York, the congresswoman merely said: “I don’t comment on my private life—thank you.”
The pair were last seen in public together at the Met Gala in 2021. Roberts, 38, who works in marketing and web development, met the Queens lawmaker when they were both students at Boston University. Their relationship sparked during a weekly debate event called “Coffee & Conversations,” where Ocasio-Cortez and Roberts sparred over everything from pop culture to the war in Afghanistan, according to AOC’s 2022 biography, Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC.
“For him to experience us dating when I was still working as a waitress and a bartender through now and seeing how the world responds [to me], I think has been a very eye-opening experience for him as well,” she told GQ in 2022.
She told the outlet that the pair were engaged in Puerto Rico, and named him when detailing how she “won the men lottery in my life,” alongside her late father and her chief of staff, Gerardo Bonilla Chavez.
“It is the presence of good men that has shown me what kind of men are possible in this world,” she said.
Publicizing her choice to freeze her eggs has brought Ocasio-Cortez even more conservative criticism than usual.
Still, in an interview on ABC News’ This Week on Sunday, the congresswoman doubled down on her choice, saying it was important to be transparent about her potential family plans “especially in this political environment.”
“This administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country, from abortion rights to the ability to carry out a healthy pregnancy,” she said. “I think it’s important for us as leaders to have these conversations and share these processes.”
