Social media personality Caroline Calloway has made an assertion about a connection with Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man thought to be responsible for the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
On Monday, December 9, Calloway, 33, declared through X that she had a physical relationship with the suspect, Mangione, on the same day that he was taken into custody by authorities at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Following his arrest, Mangione has been charged with murder in New York, in addition to four other charges, which include forging a document and unlawfully possessing a firearm, as reported by CNN.
In a subsequent tweet, Calloway wrote, “Ok technically he was not an assassin when we f—ed. … That I know of. But still!!!!”
Some people were quick to express doubts about the accuracy of Calloway’s claim.
“Receipts Caroline we need receipts,” one X user wrote, while another person chimed in, “God-tier grifter.”
Calloway has faced accusations of deception in the past. In a 2019 piece for The Cut titled “I Was Caroline Calloway,” her former friend Natalie Beach recounted being compensated for ghostwriting Calloway’s Instagram posts, uncovering her acquisition of fake social media followers, and assisting her in the creation of a book. Despite receiving a substantial advance for a memoir named School Girl, Calloway terminated the contract in 2017 and returned the majority of the $100,000 payment.
“Caroline was caught between who she was and who she believed herself to be, which in the end may have been the most relatable thing about her,” Beach wrote. “This is why, when people ask me if Caroline is a scammer, I try to explain that if she is, her first mark is always herself.”
Beach’s essay is one of several that appears in her 2023 book, Adult Drama: And Other Essays. Calloway released her own self-published memoir, cheekily titled Scammer, that same year. She publicly celebrated when The New Yorker published a review favorably comparing it to Beach’s essay collection.
“‘Beach’s book, on the other hand, is almost irritatingly rooted in fact. … Beach’s book is less meandering than Calloway’s, and yet it is also slower and more unsure of itself,’” Calloway wrote via Instagram in July 2023, quoting the New Yorker review. “GOD, MAKE ME THE BIGGER PERSON — JUST NOT YET!!!!!!”
Calloway can be counted on to make eyebrow raising statements online. Her recent claim about Mangione comes months after she said she hadn’t “f—ed someone who can read in two years” during a May appearance on the “No Jumper” podcast.
“I meet them on Hinge, and I think maybe if I go on more than a couple dates with them, they might be able to have enough clues about my life to figure out who I am, but most of them, they don’t ask, and I don’t tell them,” she continued.
Calloway also stirred up controversy in October when she announced via social media that she had no plans to leave her beachfront home in Sarasota, Florida despite dire warnings to evacuate as Hurricane Milton approached land.
“If I actually die in this storm, my books are going to go WAY UP in price. Order now,” she wrote via her Instagram Story at the time.
It’s unclear whether Calloway is telling the truth or joking about her alleged connection to Mangione. Mangione is suspected of shooting and killing Thompson outside an entrance to the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel in New York City on Wednesday, December 4. After a five-day search, Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania on Monday.
