Was it being real or oversharing?
Mayor Eric Adams may be coy about his re-election plans, but at a recent town hall in the Rockaways, he had no problem opening up about his dating history.
“I had a shorty that lived out here,” Adams told the crowd in Arverne on Wednesday night.
The mayor, who faces historically low polling and a steep drop in fundraising ahead of a crowded Democratic primary, then waxed nostalgic about his days of romance in the neighborhood – particularly, riding the A train in the cold.
“You know, love is blind,” he said.
Adams, a former police officer who has aggressively cracked down on fare evasion, also confessed to skipping the fare on occasion.
“The statute of limitations is over,” he quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.
For Adams, who has yet to hold any official campaign events, town halls and community events have been valuable opportunities for him to get his message out to voters. But he may not have intended for a story about an old flame to go viral.
Adams was panned on social media for what some saw as misplaced humor. One commenter criticized him for making his past love life his opening remarks to “the concerned citizens of Rockaway.”
The pop culture outlet Complex compared his remarks to a comedian’s “tight-five stand-up routine,” and accused him of having a tendency to “overshare at random intervals.”
Still, his remarks were relatively tame compared to past town hall controversies.
Adams made national headlines in September 2023 after saying at a town hall that the migrant crisis would “destroy New York City.” And in the summer of 2022, the mayor drew controversy after criticizing the tone of a housing activist and likening her to a “plantation owner.” It was later revealed that her family were Holocaust survivors.
But the mayor may not learn about how his town hall performance was received. Adams recently said he was no longer reading or listening to the news on the advice of his partner, Tracey Collins.
Adams has insisted that he plans to run for a second term even though he has lost major support from his Democratic allies and only recently hired a campaign spokesperson. He also recently declined to answer when asked if he would consider running as an independent.
