Madison Cawthorn's wife Cristina Bayardelle engaged to model Leonardo Jacovas before finalizing divorce
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: It looks like former Republican congressman Madison Cawthorne's estranged wife is engaged to be married again just over a year after announcing their split. Cristina Bayardelle announced the life update on Instagram on Friday, March 3, saying she "never felt more grateful and blessed."
The Florida native has reportedly been dating underwear model Leonardo Jacovas since March 2022. He first appeared on her Instagram page in September. It's worth noting that online records indicate Cawthorn, 27, and Bayardelle, 29, are not officially divorced yet. According to North Carolina law, couples must be separated for a year before divorcing. However, there is no record of the couple being separated, as reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times in January.
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'Thanking God for bringing us together'
"I thought I knew what love was before I met you. Never felt more grateful and blessed. Thanking God for bringing us together," Bayardelle wrote in an Instagram post on Friday, sharing a video of the proposal at the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago set to John Legend's 'All of Me.' Just hours after the announcement, Bayardelle shared a series of photos showing her and Jacovas vacationing in Chicago. " Still On cloud 9," she captioned the post.
According to the Daily Mail, Jacovas is a native of Brazil but lives in Miami. He is reportedly an underwear and fitness model. Like his fiancée, Jacovas is also a competitive CrossFit athlete. He previously served as assistant coach of the men's soccer team at Florida National University, where he studied business administration. "I like to read, I have the goal of reading more than 10 books a year. I speak Portuguese, English, and Spanish," Jacovas writes on his LinkedIn page, adding, "I'm a determined and focused person, that whenever I have a goal in my mind, I will do everything I can to achieve." He also states that he is a regular at Sunday mass at the Lagohina Miami Church, where he preps the space before each service.
'Strenuous' marriage
Bayardelle, at the time she split from Cawthorn, admitted in a statement to Fox 46 that being married to the country's youngest congress member was "strenuous" and that the transition into public life and scrutiny came with "unexpected" difficulties. Nonetheless, she spoke highly of her husband shortly after he announced in December 2021 that they were parting ways just eight months after taking the holy vows. "Madison is amazing – we’ve had an incredible journey together," she told the outlet. "Our marriage, like every marriage, has had its difficulties. The lifestyle shift into public life has been strenuous, and many aspects of the transition have been unexpected."
The pair said in a joint statement that they had mutually decided to divorce after realizing there were "irreconcilable differences" between them. "When Cristina and I were engaged, I was not a member of Congress. I felt called to serve and we both agreed that I should run. Our victory was unprecedented, but overnight our lives changed," Cawthorn said via his spokesperson. "That change has been both hectic and difficult, it's neither the pace nor the lifestyle we had planned for."
Cawthorn was just 25 when he beat former President Trump's pick for North Carolina's 11th congressional district, Lydia Bennett. During his tenure in office, the former congressman grabbed headlines for trying to bring a firearm aboard a plane, offering acquitted shooter Kyle Rittenhouse a job, as well as his incendiary political rhetoric.