Laverne Cox on dating ‘MAGA’ cop: ‘A lot of people will never forgive me’
Trans actress Laverne Cox revealed last year that she’d dated a “MAGA” Republican. (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty)
Laverne Cox has revealed why she ended her relationship with her ‘MAGA Republican’ police officer boyfriend after more than three years together.
Speaking on The View on Monday (8 June), the actress said she had come to see her partner clearly over time.
“The political affiliation became obvious but I already had feelings for him and I wanted to see him as a human being beyond that,” she said. “And then his politics and his unexamined life became clear after the three and a half years and I was like, ‘I love him, but I love myself more,’ and staying in this relationship, I’ll betray myself.”
In June 2025, Cox received significant criticism from fans after revealing she had been in a relationship with a “blonde-haired, blue-eyed MAGA Republican voter who is a New York City police officer.” At the time, she said they had dated for five years before breaking up the year before.
Speaking on the podcast ‘Fear&’, she recalled the reaction.
“I lost followers last year when I disclosed that my ex-boyfriend was MAGA,” she said. “He was a MAGA Republican cop. Ironically I had a ‘no dating a cop’ policy before my ex, and he told me he was in commercial real estate.”
Cox said she “knew nothing about his politics” when they began dating.
“I thought the conversation would be about how two people who have totally different politics find a way to make it work or not, and the connection that actually exists beyond politics, the soul connection,” she said.
She continued: “A lot of people will never forgive me because they were like, ‘You should have taken that to your grave,’ ‘you slept with the enemy,'” she said. “I think people are complicated. We would get into political conversations and he actually liked having them with me.”
