US House candidate accused of drunkenly insulting children
OKLAHOMA CITY (NewsNation Now) — One drink turns into a wild night and someone ends up throwing up in the hamper. It apparently happened to an Oklahoma congressional candidate and all in front of teens having a sleepover.
Abby Broyles, who is running for Oklahoma’s Fifth Congressional District as a Democrat, was hanging out at a friend’s house drinking when she not only helped make the clothes in that hamper a lot dirtier, but also ended up berating and insulting the teenage girls at that sleepover party, cursing at them, making fun of their acne, and allegedly making fun of one girl for being Hispanic.
When confronted on Twitter by an angry parent of one of the girls, she initially denied it, but that didn’t hold up when pictures of her at the sleepover appeared on social media.
“Apparently, there were some images on TikTok that were recorded, where this candidate, her friend, all the children seem to be having fun, then all the sudden this makes a sideways turn,” NewsNation’s Keleigh Beeson said on “Dan Abrams Live.”
Broyles, 32, told NewsNation affiliate KFOR that she had an adverse reaction after drinking wine and taking sleep medication given to her by a friend.
“Instead of helping me sleep, I hallucinated,” Broyles told the station in a televised interview. “And I don’t remember anything until I woke up or came to, and I was throwing up in a hamper.”
Parents and at least one of the girls who were at the sleepover told the online news outlet NonDoc, which first reported the story, that Broyles used profanity and berated several of the 12- and 13-year-old girls at the party.
The parent of one of the girls, Sarah Matthews, tweeted last week that she was disappointed Broyles had not reached out to the girls to apologize.
“For someone who pontificates to be undyingly pro woman, I am disgusted by your behavior and find it appalling you couldn’t understand why their parents are angry,” Matthews wrote.
Broyles, who initially denied to NonDoc that she had attended the party, apologized last week during her interview with KFOR, a news channel for which she used to work as a journalist.
“I want to say sorry from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for any hurt or damage or trauma that my behavior, when I didn’t know what I was doing, caused,” Broyles said. “I’m deeply sorry.”
It appears as though Broyles is still moving forward with her campaign.
“There haven’t been any big calls for her to step down and she is defending her behavior on Twitter, so by all accounts she seems to be full steam ahead,” Beeson said.