Zohran Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji apologizes for using the F-slur online as a teenager
Zohran Mamdani stands with his wife Rama Duwaji (L) after delivering remarks at his election night watch party at the Brooklyn Paramount on November 4, 2025 (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, has apologised after old tweets were unearthed that show her using the F-slur and N-word in 2013.
The posts were unearthed by right-wing website The Washington Free Beacon last month, and include her responding to a Twitter user with the n-word: “@_AlyaF Helllll yeah, n****. Super duper genius* excuse you.”
She also wrote: “Whyyyyyy are all these fgts following meeeeeeeee,” in June of the same year.
The Washington Free Beacon also criticised several Instagram posts she had shared that they claimed “glorified Palestinian terrorists,” including a post featuring Liberation of Palestine’s (PFLP) Leila Khaled, who participated in plane hijackings in 1969 and 1970.
“When a tabloid recently published old tweets I wrote as a teenager, I felt a lot of shame being confronted with language I used that is so harmful to others; being 15 doesn’t excuse it,” Rama Duwaji told the online magazine Hyperallergic. “I’ve 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.”
Zohran Mamdani was asked about the controversy in a separate interview, where he described his wife as a “private person” who does not hold a formal position in City Hall, the Independent reports.
He also said: “She shared some of her reflections in this interview. I won’t add much to them, what I will say, however, is that she is someone of incredible integrity.”
Mamdani’s historic win in New York City on 4 November 2025 made made him the city’s first Muslim mayor and the youngest since 1892. He made a series of pledges to support and uplift the LGBTQ+ community as part of his mayoral campaign.
On his official website, a summary of Mamdani’s commitments to the LGBTQ+ community reads: “Queer and trans people across the United States are facing an increasingly hostile political environment. New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights.
“Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.
“The Mamdani administration will protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers by expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and creating the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.”
On 13 March 2026, Mamdani followed through on that pledge, establishing the first Mayor’s Office for LGBTQIA+ affairs and appointing the first out trans person to lead a New York City office as director.
