{"id":588518,"date":"2026-04-16T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588518\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:55:08","slug":"mamdanis-wife-rama-duwaji-apologizes-for-social-media-posts-she-made-as-a-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588518\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji apologizes for social media posts she made as a teen"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, has apologized for \u201charmful\u201d social media posts she made as a teenager, responding publicly after a conservative news outlet combed through her online profiles and resurfaced material, including a post in which she used an anti-gay slur.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the arts website Hyperallergic, Duwaji<\/a>, an illustrator, said she felt \u201ca lot of shame being confronted with language I used that is so harmful to others,\u201d adding \u201cbeing 15 doesn\u2019t excuse it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read and seen a lot of what others have had to say in response, and I understand the hurt I caused and am truly sorry,\u201d she said in the interview<\/a>, published Wednesday, in response to a question about adjusting to life as a public figure.<\/p>\n

Duwaji did not specify which comments she was referring to, nor did she address other, more recent social media activity regarding Israel that has attracted heavy scrutiny as Mamdani tries to ease concerns<\/a> among some in the city\u2019s Jewish community over his own criticism of Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Last month, The Washington Free Beacon reported on years of Duwaji\u2019s online activity across a handful of social media platforms, finding she had shared posts praising female Palestinian militants who participated in plane hijackings and bombings in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 2015, she shared a post in which someone else wrote that Tel Aviv was occupying Palestinian land and \u201cshouldn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duwaji also once used a racial slur for Black people while affectionately addressing a friend and used an abbreviated slur for gay people in 2013.<\/p>\n

The mayor has previously said his wife is a \u201cprivate person\u201d who does not hold a formal position in City Hall. Asked Thursday about which specific posts his wife regretted, Mamdani demurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe shared some of her reflections in this interview. I won\u2019t add much to them, what I will say, however, is that she is someone of incredible integrity,\u201d Mamdani told reporters.<\/p>\n

He added that questions about Duwaji\u2019s social media activity were \u201cpart and parcel\u201d of his own choice to run for mayor, \u201ca decision that has ramifications for those that I love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, Duwaji has also come under criticism for liking an Instagram post that appeared to cheer Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023 surprise attack on Israel. The Free Beacon has also reported that Duwaji provided an illustration for an essay by an author who described the Oct. 7 attack as \u201cspectacular\u201d and had called Jewish Israelis \u201crootless soulless ghouls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani has previously said his wife had been commissioned to illustrate an excerpt of a book by a third party, and said she had never engaged or met with the author, and that Duwaji had not seen the author\u2019s previous comments. He called the author\u2019s rhetoric \u201cpatently unacceptable\u201d and \u201creprehensible.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP writer Jake Offenhartz contributed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has apologized for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1574,236,2692,21283,88,793,803,2005,1999,111,108,74,18224,795,10766],"class_list":["post-588518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bombings","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity","tag-conservatism","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-israel","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-politics","tag-social-media","tag-technology","tag-teens","tag-u-s-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}