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Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has gotten nine tattoos as a member of Congress because getting inked provides “the pain that I need to feel,” the congresswoman said in a revealing profile released on Friday.
The 48-year-old congresswoman got the tattoos in “rapid succession” between a period in late 2023 and early 2024, marked by the breakup with her fiancé and an exodus of staffers from her office, some of whom viewed working for Mace as “toxic,” according to Politico.
Aside from a need to feel “pain,” Mace described getting tattoos as a way to “reclaim” her body and identity.
One of her nine tattoos is the opening line of Virginia Woolf’s famous novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.”
Woolf, as Politico pointed out, committed suicide in 1941 over fears “she was going mad.”
“So my story is I am totally broken,” the congresswoman and South Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate is quoted as saying in the profile.
Mace details the strained relationship she has with her father, her struggles in becoming the first female graduate at The Citadel and alleged instances of sexual molestation and rape that she’s been the victim of throughout the piece.
“I have PTSD over what I’ve been through,” she said.
At another point in the lengthy profile, Mace notes: “I don’t know that I’ll ever be OK with myself. There’s no end of the story where I’m whole.”
However, the traumatic moments are now what appear to be driving her.
“I’m showing up to a family court hearing for a mom in a couple of weeks. I’m showing up to another court hearing for the family member of a murder victim in a couple of weeks,” Mace said. “It’s just my reaction and my response … and it keeps me alive.”
The congresswoman is also front and center in the congressional investigation into notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
On Thursday, Mace claimed former first lady Hillary Clinton became “unhinged” when she asked her about racy photos of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, that were revealed in the Epstein files.
“She was screaming. She was unhinged. I hope that President Clinton is less unhinged today than his wife was yesterday,” she said.
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