The longtime couple, who got engaged in 2022, have reportedly been separated for a while
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NEED TO KNOW
- New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her ex-fiancé Riley Roberts quietly broke up a while ago, according to The New York Times
- The couple, who met as students at Boston University and dated for more than a decade, got engaged in Puerto Rico in 2022
- Roberts largely stayed out of the spotlight while supporting Ocasio-Cortez during her rise to political prominence
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her fiancé Riley Roberts discreetly called off their engagement a while back, according to a new report.
After days of unverified claims circulating on social media, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, Aug. 12, that Ocasio-Cortez, 36, “quietly ended” her relationship with Roberts “some time ago.”
Ocasio-Cortez got engaged to Roberts in 2022 after more than a decade together. The Democratic congresswoman confirmed the news in May of that year, responding to a post on X about her engagement by writing, “It’s true! Thank you all for the well wishes.”
“I feel like I won the men lottery in my life,” AOC told GQ later in the year.
Ocasio-Cortez and Roberts first met as undergraduates at Boston University, where they connected through the school’s debate and discussion sessions.
The couple got engaged in Puerto Rico, where Ocasio-Cortez’s family has roots. At the time, however, they said they were not rushing into wedding planning.
“We got engaged last month in my family’s hometown in Puerto Rico,” Ocasio-Cortez told a Business Insider reporter at the time. “No future details yet, we’re taking some space to savor this time before diving into planning.”
Roberts largely remained out of the political spotlight as Ocasio-Cortez’s career took off. He appeared alongside her in the 2019 Netflix documentary Knock Down the House, which followed her first congressional campaign and rise to national prominence.
Friends have described Roberts as someone who supported Ocasio-Cortez privately while allowing her to remain the more public figure in their relationship. The couple briefly broke up at one point before getting back together.
Ocasio-Cortez, who was first elected to Congress in 2018, has become one of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable progressive figures. Despite her high-profile political career, she had generally kept her relationship with Roberts relatively private.
In August 2026, the congresswoman shared her decision to freeze her eggs in a series of candid Instagram Stories, explaining that she had been saving up for “a very long time,” per a clip reposted this month on X.
“We are not prepared for our own lives, whether that is in puberty, whether that is in pregnancy, whether that is in perimenopause, menopause … whether you want to plan to have a family, whether you don’t plan to have children biologically,” she explained of women in one of her videos.
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Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged that discussing her family planning publicly could carry a political “risk,” with her personal choices potentially sparking speculation and becoming part of how voters view her career. Still, she said she would rather draw attention to the broader challenges women face than let scrutiny shape her decisions.
“You know, men run for office … and people don’t think in the back of their mind, ‘Okay, this guy’s running for office. How old is he? Is he going to want to start a family?’ ” she said.
“People don’t go down those rabbit holes and fixate on them for men in terms of their decision the way that they do for women,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
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