North Carolina’s Rep. Madison Cawthorn announces divorce
U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn announced on Twitter Wednesday night that he and his wife, Cristina, are divorcing after realizing his lifestyle as a congressman didn’t work with their marriage.
Cawthorn, 26, married his wife in a ceremony on Apr. 3, the seven-year anniversary of the car wreck that left him paralyzed.
The couple had legally married months earlier in a private ceremony as Cawthorn began his job representing North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.
Cawthorn, a first-term Republican, said he and the fitness Instagram influencer were engaged before he became a congressman, and it was his job that led to their split.
“I felt called to serve and we both agreed I should run,” Cawthorn said. “Our victory was unprecedented, but overnight our lives changed.”
As a newly married congressman, Cawthorn immediately faced backlash for missing 15 votes in a single week while honeymooning with his wife in Dubai.
“It just shows how exactly the Democrats feel about the nuclear family here in America right now,” Cawthorn said on television in response to the criticism. “I was doing the only thing that I find more important than my service here in Congress and that is my service as a husband.”
He added that he would choose being with Cristina over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi every time.
Cawthorn has had a tumultuous first year in Congress as a Trump supporter who isn’t afraid to challenge authority. He spoke at the Jan. 6 rally and has suggested falsely that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
He’s been the subject of numerous scandals that include allegations of sexual misconduct and lies or exaggerations about his life story.
He often draws headlines for his speeches, as he did Tuesday at a Turning Point Action event where he called college a scam and encouraged students to drop out, as he did. Turning Point Action is a nonprofit that teaches conservative principles on high school, college and university campuses.
In the same speech, he said he would be considered a radical and an extremist for believing, among other things, that people should be a Christian, get married young and have lots of children.
The next day he would announce that his marriage of eight months had fallen apart. Cawthorn said that the couple found that his life in Congress was too difficult and hectic and not the lifestyle or paced they planned, he wrote.
Cawthorn went on to say that they went to counseling and fought for their marriage and balance “in the enormity of such a life transition.”
“Together we realized that balance was not attainable, and that we had irreconcilable differences between us,” Cawthorn wrote.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published December 22, 2021 at 8:21 PM with the headline "North Carolina’s Rep. Madison Cawthorn announces divorce."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Cristina Cawthorn’s name.
