Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson allegedly mistreated her campaign staff and frequently displayed “uncontrollable rage” while running for the party’s nomination in 2020.
According to Politico, 12 of Williamson’s former staffers labeled Williamson’s behavior during her campaign as “cruel” and “uncontrollable.”
“It would be foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage,” one former staffer told the outlet. “It was traumatic. And the experience, in the end, was terrifying.”
NEW: Staffers from Marianne Williamson's 2020 campaign say she was verbally and emotionally abusive. They described working for her as “terrifying” and “traumatic.”
“It would be foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage,” one person said.https://t.co/tcf8iX656X
— Lauren Egan (@Lauren_V_Egan) March 16, 2023
Williamson’s outbursts would get so loud that on at least four occasions, the hotel staff would come to Williamson’s room to check on the situation, the staffers said. At times: she would throw her phone at staffers: or yell until they began to cry.
Former Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH), who served as Williamson’s 2020 New Hampshire state director, said the descriptions were accurate based on his observations.
“Those reports of Ms. Williamson’s behavior are consistent with my observations, consistent with contemporaneous discussions I had about her conduct with staff members, and entirely consistent with my own personal experience with her behavior on multiple occasions,” he said.
Williamson emailed Politico, calling the accusations “slanderous” and “categorically untrue.”
“Former staffers trying to score points with the political establishment by smearing me might be good for their careers, but the intention is to deflect attention from the important issues facing the American people,” she said. “This Presidential Campaign expects concerted efforts to dismiss and denigrate us. But the amplification of outright lies should not occur.”
Williamson acknowledged that at one point, she went to urgent care after slamming her hand on a car door but said that a “car door is not a person. I would never be physically hurtful to a person.”
The former aides said Williamson’s behavior was unpredictable, saying she criticized staffers for irrelevant things. They said, for example, if a staffer booked a hotel room with a walk-in shower instead of a bathtub, Williamson would get angry.
“She would get caught in these vicious emotional loops where she would yell and scream hysterically,” said a second former staffer. “This was day after day after day. It wasn’t that she was having a bad day or moment. It was just boom, boom, boom — and often for no legitimate reason.”
The allegations come after Williamson announced she is running against President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary. The staffers said they are motivated to warn anyone considering joining her campaign.
