Report: AOC Quietly Ended Engagement Years Ago

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hasn't ruled out a 2028 run for president, but longtime partner Riley Roberts is no longer a potential first gentleman. The New York Times reports that she "quietly ended" the relationship "some time ago." According to TMZ, they split up around two years ago. The breakup ends a relationship that began more than a decade ago when the two met as undergrads at Boston University and led to a 2022 engagement in her family's hometown in Puerto Rico, People reports. Neither has publicly commented on the reported separation.

Roberts largely stayed offstage as Ocasio-Cortez's political profile grew, though he did appear in the 2019 Netflix documentary Knock Down the House. The Times reports that Ocasio-Cortez hasn't worn her engagement ring in a long time and her Capitol Hill colleagues have long been aware that the relationship is over. The 36-year-old New York Democrat, first elected in 2018, has recently spoken openly about freezing her eggs and the scrutiny women in politics face over family planning, noting that voters rarely subject male candidates to the same questions.

• Diana Z. O'Brien, chair of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Washington University in St. Louis, tells the Times that if Ocasio-Cortez hadn't gone public about freezing her eggs, people would have assumed that she had decided to "de-prioritize" family. "It came up for Senator Cory Booker before he was married, so it will definitely come up for a woman," she says. "This allows her to say, 'yes, I'm single right now, but that doesn't mean I intend to be child-free or single forever.' It counterbalances a narrative that would try to portray her as a very particular type of leftist single woman who hates men."
• The Times reports that early reports of the breakup "broke the internet" on Tuesday. "All the single leftwing men in this city are about to line up nightly for dinner in her district until she picks one like the suitors in The Odyssey," Brooklyn-based community organizer Asad Dandia quipped on X.