Cynthia Nixon throws Andrew Cuomo some shade
The award-winning actress and former New York Governor hopeful expressed her vindication at Andrew Cuomo’s fall from power.
To many LGBTQ New Yorkers, it was disappointing when Cynthia Nixon lost the Democratic primary election to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) in September 2018. Nixon fought her campaign as a left field, left-wing challenger to Cuomo but the incumbent gained 65% of the vote to Nixon’s 35%.
Cuomo had been the state’s governor since 2011 and experienced a surge in popular support during the coronavirus pandemic when he showed state leadership during a complete national leadership void. But Cuomo also faced scandals: deaths in nursing homes; fudged state figures, and sexual harassment claims from 11 women.
After two women went public with accounts of harassment, Cuomo referred the complaints, as required by law, to New York Attorney General Letitia James who launched an investigation. The impeachment probe and subsequent report released on Aug. 3 by James, a fellow Democrat, ultimately caused Cuomo’s fall from grace and resignation.
Nixon, who is out and married activist Christine Marinoni in 2012, fired off a series of tweets:
The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Cuomo with an honorary Emmy for “his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.”
But in the wake of the sexual harassment allegations and damning report into his conduct, the Academy has rescinded Cuomo’s Emmy. But Nixon still has hers. Two of them.
“The difference between me and Andrew Cuomo?” she tweeted. “Neither of us is governor, but I still have my Emmy(s).”
Nixon won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Sex and the City in 2004, and another for Best Guest Actress in a Drama in 2008, for Law & Order: SVU.
While Nixon copped a lot of criticism for being an actor who wanted to enter politics, she still has a lot of thoughts over how her home state should be governed, and it’s not by a sexual abuser.
Nixon, 55, was born in Manhattan and made her Broadway debut in 1980 when she was 14. In 2018 her platform for Governor focused on income inequality, renewable energy, establishing universal health care, stopping mass incarceration in the U.S., and protecting undocumented children from deportation—all issues that have only grown in importance in the past three years. While we wish she had won the race in 2018, we’re happy that a woman, Kathy Hochul, will fill Cuomo’s shoes now.
In any case, let’s give Nixon the last word:
