Getty U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) stands on stage in an empty Mellon Auditorium while addressing the Republican National Convention.
Republican Sen. Tim Scott is delivering the GOP’s response to President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress. (Biden’s speech is commonly referred to as the State of the Union during any year but the President’s first year in office.) Is Scott married or dating?
Scott Is Not Married & He Does Not Have Children
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Scott is not married and he does not have children. According to his Senate bio, he was born in 1965 and is a member of Seacoast Church of Charleston.
Scott grew up in a single-parent household where his mother had to work long hours in order to pay all the family bills. He failed four classes during his freshman year of high school, but his mother and a personal mentor helped him pull through.
Scott has served as a Senator for South Carolina since 2013. He was first appointed by Gov. Nikki Haley in 2013, then won a special election in 2014, and was elected to his first full term in 2016. He served in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013.
Scott told Politico that he didn’t want to start a new family until he was settled and accomplished enough to take care of his mother, who had supported him while they were very poor.
He Says He Always Wanted Six Children
Scott told Politico that in his early 40s, he was thinking about settling down and had a girlfriend that he was getting serious with. But a 1st District seat opened, and he decided that marriage and Congress couldn’t mix at that time.
He told Politico that he had always wanted six children of his own, and hopes that perhaps his future wife will want children.
“I think in the right time, I will meet Mrs. Right, and she’ll want to have a couple kids. Or she ain’t Mrs. Right. Right?” he said.
In 2012, He Admitted That His Abstinence Pledge Hadn’t Survived
When Scott was 30 and campaigning, he was open about being a virgin and how that was a part of his evangelical Christian faith, Daily Mail reported. But 16 years later at the age of 46, he admitted that he wasn’t a virgin anymore, although he still believed that was the better path.
When asked about holding to the abstinence pledge he had talked about at the age of 30, he said: “Yeah… Not as well as I did then. The Bible’s right. You’re better off to wait. I just wish we all had more patience.”
He Took a Female Friend on a 3-Day Trip & Had to Pay Back Some Expenses to the American Enterprise Institute
In 2012, the House Ethics Committee informed him that he needed to pay back a conservative think tank for the costs of bringing his friend, Zee Patel, with him on a three-day trip, Daily Mail reported.
Scott was invited to the Cloister Beach Club by the American Enterprise Institute. His aunt was supposed to go but when she couldn’t, he said that he invited Patel. Patel was the general manager for a lingerie store in Charleston called Bits of Lace.
Scott said she was just a close friend and she stayed in a suite with him and his mother. She also worked on his transition team in 2010. Daily Mail reported that Scott had to pay back the cost of her stay because the organization was only allowed to pay for members of Congress and their families, but not friends.
In February 2013, FITS News reported that a “source close to Tim Scott” said he and Patel were no longer dating. However, Scott himself never confirmed that he and Patel were anything more than friends.
He Had a Girlfriend in 2013
In 2013, when he made The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful List, he said that he had a girlfriend but wasn’t going to name her, Charleston City Paper reported in August 2013.
“She’s great. We’ll see how it works out,” he said. When asked what her name was, he wouldn’t give a name. He only replied that he was “smarter than that.”
Scott has not revealed in interviews if he and the girlfriend from 2013 are still together or who he may be currently dating.
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