Former Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.) spoke with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Thursday about biphobic rhetoric playing a part in her resignation.
Stephanopoulos asked Hill on ABC’s “Good Morning America” if she regrets not fighting for her position, with Hill affirming that she “made the right call” stepping down from office.
“I did not want to be a liability to my colleagues,” she said. “We knew from the people who had obtained the [explicit] photos that there were hundreds more images and text messages out there that I had no idea what they could be, or taken out of context.”
Hill announced her resignation in October, after nude photos of her were leaked online and amid claims of an inappropriate sexual relationship with a congressional aide.
The House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into allegations that the 32-year-old lawmaker had violated the chamber’s rules by engaging in a sexual relationship with a staffer in her office.
The California lawmaker denied the allegation, but admitted she engaged in a relationship with a campaign staffer before being elected to Congress, calling it “inappropriate.”
In her interview on Thursday, Hill maintained that the reaction was “sensationalizing” and “biphobic.”
“The bisexuality is a huge part of it — there’s a fantasy element of it,” Hill said. “There’s biphobia that is rampant still, and certainly a misunderstanding of what bisexuality is.”
Hill penned an op-ed for The New York Times in December, describing the overwhelming number of supportive messages from her constituents coupled with offensive texts and calls she received from strangers after the news of her scandal broke out.
“Many people have nightmares in which they’re naked in public, trapped and trying to escape. In the days leading up to my resignation, my life was just like everyone’s worst nightmare. Millions of people had seen pictures of me naked,” Hill wrote in the Times.
Hill told Stephanopoulos that she contemplated suicide over the scandal initially and that it was the will of her family that helped her remain active through the process.
“Of all the girls and young women that looked up to me … if the ultimate outcome was that this destroyed me and I committed suicide … what does that tell them. That couldn’t be my final story,” she said.