AOC details 'hardship' of living in public eye after backing Meghan Markle: 'Sometimes I just want to be a human being'
Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on Tuesday, opened up about the emotional toll of living in the spotlight, saying "sometimes I just want to be a human being." The 30-year-old's statement came shortly after clips of an ITV documentary featuring Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, showed the Duchess of Sussex talking about her own hardships after marrying the Duke and becoming a mother.
AOC, a bartender turned Congresswoman, was thrown into the spotlight after she won the Democratic Party's election for New York's 14th congressional district in June 2018. The Democrat socialist continued to make headlines for her work in Congress and her attacks on President Donald Trump and his administration.
Ocasio-Cortez, while talking to the Huffington Post on Tuesday, said: "Sometimes I just want to be a human being. And you don’t get to be a human anymore. Everything you do from wearing sweatpants to the bodega to getting a haircut - every personal decision you make for yourself is never going to be yours anymore."
The New York Representative, last week on Friday, had retweeted Markle's emotional interview, saying: "Sudden prominence is a very dehumanizing experience. There’s a part of your life that you lose, & it later dawns on you that you’ll never get it back. The people who treat you like a human make all the difference."
The Congresswoman said that she has decided to speak out on the toll of living in the public eye. AOC said that she empathized with Markle when she talked about the struggles of being in the public eye.
"I feel an enormous amount of empathy for her, because it requires an enormous amount of tools to be resilient – and also to stay human in that,' AOC said. 'There’s a lot of people that are going to say "oh, boo-hoo," but I feel for her. I really feel for her.'
Markle, in the ITV documentary entitled 'Harry & Meghan: An African Journey', had said: "It’s hard. I don’t think anybody could understand that, but in all fairness, I had no idea, which probably sounds difficult to understand…"
Ocasio-Cortez's life, ever since she won the 2018 primaries, was flung into the spotlight, from her family history, her bartending career, to her love life. The Congresswoman called it "one of the most stressful experiences ever" for her.
"You kind of grieve for that. It has its highs and it has its lows. A lot of people look at the highs, but sometimes it feels like you got a tattoo on your face that you didn’t ask for," she said. "It’s hard. It’s very hard. Sometimes you just want to get a drink or eat a hamburger."