Lauren Duca, a writer for Teen Vogue with over 134,000 Twitter followers at the time of this post, first made headlines after a December 2016 interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson regarding Ivanka Trump.
On January 8, she was in the news once again after the infamous pharmaceutical tycoon, Martin Shkreli, harassed her via twitter and subsequently had his account suspended.
Who is the woman behind the headlines, Lauren Duca? Here’s what you need to know:
1. She Became Famous After Tucker Carlson Accused Her of Justifying an Attack Against Ivanka Trump
In an interview December 23, 2016 with Tucker Carlson, Duca responded to an incident where Ivanka Trump was berated by a fellow passenger aboard a JetBlue flight.
A lawyer from Brooklyn, New York chastised Ivanka about her father, Donald Trump, as she sat aboard the plane with her children.
Carlson interviewed Duca after accusing her of “justifying” the attack against Ivanka.
“What are the venues that you shouldn’t scream your political views at people?” Carlson asked Duca.
“I think what is a non-partisan issue is that air travel is horrific and I don’t think anybody should be enduring confrontations in the air be it Ivanka Trump with her children, or just any other human being in a tin can and being dehydrated,” Duca replied.
She went on to say that Ivanka is “not just a mother,” but a very powerful woman connected to President-elect Donald Trump.
Carlson confronted Duca about her tweet on not “letting Ivanka off the hook,” and referred to other tweets, specifically when she said that Ivanka had a “sinister complicity in aiding the most aggressively anti-woman candidate of our time.”
At the end of the heated argument, Duca reprimanded Carlson for interrupting her and said that he was “actually being a partisan hack” for “not allowing” her to speak.
Carlson ended the interview stating that Duca should “stick to the thigh-high boots. You’re better at that.”
2. The Interview Led to Thousands of Angry Responses, Including a Rape Threat
Following the interview with Carlson, Duca repeatedly tweeted that she was being harassed, and said she received a rape threat on Christmas day, which she referred to in the above tweet.
“Your a scumbag whore,” the above tweet reads. “You’re,” was Duca’s cheeky response.
And while many were expressing their anger towards the writer, her supporters also came out in full-force:
She thanked her supporters in the following video:
And confidently reacted to the “trolls” teaming up against her:
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3. Martin Shkreli Asked Her to Be His ‘Plus One’ to Trump’s Inauguration, & Harassed Her Before His Twitter Page Was Taken Down
Duca caught the attention of Shkreli after the heated debate with Carlson over Ivanka Trump.
Shkreli invited Duca to be his “plus one” at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Duca replied to the invite, stating “I would rather eat my own organs,” as shown in the above tweet.
Before his Twitter account was suspended Shkreli’s bio read, “also i have a small crush on @laurenduca (hope she doesn’t find out),” and in a bizarre act he included a collage of Duca on his Twitter page’s background. In addition, his profile picture featured a Photoshopped image of himself with Duca, with his face over what had been Duca’s husband.
Duca may have struck a nerve with Shkreli before the latest drama, by tweeting the following in August 2016:
The journalist is no stranger to controversy. Duca received heavy criticism after the following May 2016 tweet surfaced where she stated that “white men are generally trash:”
In 2015, she tweeted that she “can” make fun of white men, since she had “slept with several of them:”
Twitter user @steph93065 tweeted a warning to mothers to not allow their daughters to read Teen Vogue, in reply to a tweet that Duca sent out stating she would “f**king kill the next random man” who spoke to her:
While the exact reason why Shkreli’s Twitter account has been suspended hasn’t been verified, NY Mag reported that “Duca and others have reached out on Twitter to CEO Jack Dorsey to intervene.”
Shkreli, an Albanian-American, first made headlines when people across the country became horrified after news emerged that he had purchased the rights to the drug Daraprim through his company Turing Pharmaceuticals. It’s a drug that’s been used for over 60 years to help those with weakened immune systems. Overnight, the price of the drug shot up from $13.50 per tablet to $750.
Duca reacted to questions about both the Shkreli and Carlson controversies in a “Girl Friday” podcast by CAFE media on January 13. “Shkreli has been obsessed with me since Tucker,” she stated in the podcast. “The funny thing is these people now are so angry at me…he has a f**ing legion of supporters.”
You can listen to her responses, as well as comical talks about her ultra “conservative parents” who voted for Trump by clicking here or by pressing the play button below:
4. In Addition to Her Role at Teen Vogue, She Also Wrote for the Huffington Post
According to her LinkedIn profile, before writing for Teen Vogue, Duca previously worked for “The Huffington Post and New York Magazine,” as well as the “Fordham University Creative Writing Program.”
A description of her current work and previous roles can be seen on laurenduca.com:
Lauren Duca is uncomfortable talking about herself in the third person, but has heard it can be effective for things like this. She is a writer, journalist and L.A. Press Club award-winner, who is mostly trying to get you to follow her on Twitter.
After graduating from Fordham University, Lauren spent two years working as an entertainment reporter for the Huffington Post. While on staff, she created the weekly newsletter Middlebrow, and wrote an absurdly long, reported piece on Lifetime that frankly not enough people have read. Since moving on to pursue freelancing full time, she has expanded her brand of comedic anthropology (lol, sorry) to include a wide range of work, from political analysis to human interest pieces.
In addition to her current role as weekend editor at Teen Vogue, Lauren’s most recent writing can be found in / on The New Inquiry, Vice, Complex, New York magazine, Pacific Standard, The Nation, and The New Yorker, as well as other places, such as a weird scrapbook her parents have been maintaining since she was in kindergarten.
5. She Is Married and Resides In New York
According to her Facebook page, Duca lives in New York, New York and is married. In her intro on the social media site, she asks for viewers of the page to “please follow me on Twitter.”
On June 20, 2016, Duca posted the following photo and said “Oh hey, we’re married:”