Riley Roberts
Riley Roberts
Riley Roberts is a web developer and marketing specialist. He is known for his relationship with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [1]
Personal Life
Roberts grew up in the wealthy area of Paradise Valley, Arizona, and graduated from the top-ranked Chaparral High School after winning statewide honors in public-forum debate. He met Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a chat session that was hosted by the dean and they've been together ever since. His father is a real estate agent and his mother, Constance, gave Cortez the pearl-drop necklace she has worn throughout her campaign. [2] [13]
Education
Riley Roberts graduated from Boston University with a B.A in Sociology and a B.S in Business Administration and Management. He has a DigitalMarket certification in Conversion Funnel Mastery and another in Ecommerce Marketing Mastery. [3]
Career
He is the head of marketing at Homebinder, a modern home management platform.
In his role he's responsible for social media marketing, page design, onboarding and retention, among many other things. [3]
He is also a UX growth consultant at RileyUX where he focuses on digital marketing, design and UX, conversion rate optimization, and front-end development. [3]
Relationship With AOC
The couple have been together for over four years and have managed to keep their relationship mostly out of the limelight. Roberts first became known to the public when he was pictured alongside AOC in a Vogue article titled "How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Other Progressives Are Defining the Midterms". [6] However, it wasn't until the November 2018, midterm documentary "Knock Down The House" came out on May 1st, 2019 that Roberts grew in notoriety. After, the documentary, journalist Marie Le Conte Tweeted the following: [4][5]
"apologies for the blatantly mean tweet but THIS is what AOC’s boyfriend looks like?
incredible scenes, truly representing all the ambitious and stunning millenial women shackled to boyfriends who look like bin raccoons out there"
"oh jesus fucking christ, FINE, I've deleted my perfectly fine joke, the world breathes a sigh of relief as men with beards looking like braided pubes are no longer being discriminated against and "bin raccoon" officially becomes beyond the pale, well done to all involved.
(on a brief serious note, because a few people have messaged on that point - "bin raccoon" meant scruffy for me, I've called myself that in the past, look through my tweets if you want; I wouldn't call someone ugly!
I hope people who know me realise that?)"
Controversy
Federal records show that Roberts received $6,000 from Brand New Congress, a political action committee that was founded by AOC's chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. Her campaign was simultaneously paying Brand New Congress LLC $18,880 for “strategic consulting.” [1]
In February of 2019 a twitter user named Ltthompso noticed that Roberts had a mailhouse.gov address and tweeted out:
"While you were having a nice Valentine's Day, AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff — drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly."
AOC immediately clapped back that Roberts having a White House email is routine: [5]
"Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal.
Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time.
Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense."