South Carolina lawmaker Nancy Mace confirms she dumped her fiancé after he was ‘caught on a dating app’ in scorching remarks where she joked about firing staff but denied talking about sex in the office
- DailyMail.com reported last week that Mace split from her fiancé last month
- The couple is fighting over a $3.9 million beachfront estate and a $1.3 million house in Washington, D.C.
- Mace confirmed she dumped her ex in comments at a social gathering in DC; focused on the report of the loss of six staffers due to office unrest
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace confirmed Saturday evening that she had dumped her former fiancé after catching him on a dating app, in pointed remarks that also included joking about the turmoil among her congressional staff.
The telegenic Charleston lawmaker delved into her personal life during a joke-filled speech at the Gridiron Club's annual winter dinner in Washington.
She addressed a room full of senior media figures during the speaking engagement, just days after DailyMail.com reported that she and fiancé Patrick Bryant had split and were trying to offload a joint multi-million beachfront property and a DC home.
“If your fiance gets caught on a dating app, dump him. True story,” she said in a comment that shocked the audience.
The line referenced information in the report that cited sources saying Mace discovered Bryant was on the dating app while they were still together. Bryant disputed this, telling DailyMail.com that he had redownloaded it long enough to delete an old profile.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace posted a photo of herself at the winter Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday night before discussing her breakup and turmoil in her congressional office
Mace had supplemented the personal revelation with a few jokes about DC, referencing stalled aid to Ukraine and Speaker Mike Johnson's statement in a resurfaced video of him and a son monitoring each other's online usage.
“My ex wanted to get married, but I linked it to the border patrol,” she joked.
“I have to be careful when I say this next line because I don't want to trigger Mike Johnson's porn monitoring software,” she joked before her statement about her personal life and the dating app. It was an unexpected end to a relationship with one on television marriage proposal.
Mace, whose colorful biography earns her frequent TV appearances — she once worked at a Waffle House and was the first woman to graduate from Citadel Military College in her home state — also addressed what she called “gossip” in the article “about me that I fired'. my staff members.'
'And now people are saying it's going to hurt my career. I said right, because no one ever knows that saying 'you're fired' would ever make it in politics,” she said, joking about the former Apprentice star turned leading Republican presidential candidate for re-election Donald Trump .
“A current employee said this article is so bad. This story about firing people is terrible. That's why I fired him,” she said.
The 46-year-old mother of two was stunned in May 2022 when her entrepreneur boyfriend Patrick Bryant got down on one knee and asked if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
Since they split, their rift has worsened, and now they're fighting over a $3.9 million beachfront property up there, with six bedrooms and a pool, and a $1.3 million house in Washington , DC, in which they both have shares.
After losing six staffers in a matter of months, Rep. Nancy Mace and her fiancé have split and are now embroiled in a messy dispute over the multi-million dollar homes they bought together.
She also referred to the claim, raised by sources in the story, that Mace openly discussed her sex life in the office in front of junior male staffers. A senior employee called the topics 'not appropriate in a working environment'.
'The DailyMail claims I talked about my sex life in the office. This is categorically incorrect. I'll save that topic for a prayer breakfast,” she said, deflecting the accusation by referencing her infamous comment last summer in which she blamed her frisky former fiancé for almost making her late to the event.
Mace himself was the butt of jokes at the event, a more intimate version of the spring dinner for the club founded in 1885, where notables sometimes make news with one-liners and where former Vice President Mike Pence Trump brandished a slur on Jan. 6. Mace was critical of Trump after January 6, but then took steps to embrace the former president, and was one of only eight Republicans to vote to impeach former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.