A weekend trip to a skincare aisle in a South Carolina Ulta store turned into a national controversy after Representative Nancy Mace unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on a constituent who asked her a routine political question.
The incident, captured in multiple videos and shared widely online, has sparked new criticism of the congresswoman’s increasingly combative public behavior and raised questions about how she views her responsibilities to her constituents.
It began with a simple inquiry. A man, standing at a polite distance and speaking calmly, asked Mace whether she would be holding any more town halls this year. Instead of answering, Mace launched into a verbal assault, shifting abruptly to LGBTQ+ talking points, invoking personal assumptions about the man's identity, and ultimately shouting, "F**k you!" multiple times in front of other shoppers.
Her behavior, recorded from both her phone and the man's, was posted online and quickly went viral. While Mace claimed on social media that she had been provoked by a "lunatic... wearing daisy dukes," the footage contradicted her account. The man had neither shouted nor advanced on her. He had asked a question, one that any elected official should be prepared to answer in public.
Still, Mace presented herself as the victim.
"Some unhinged lunatic, a man, wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store, got in my face today," she wrote on X. "Dems are nuts. So I went off — and I won’t be backing down."
The video told another story.
In it, Mace responded to the constituent’s question not with information but with deflection.
"I voted for gay marriage twice," she said, unprompted.
When the man asked what that had to do with him, she replied, "It has everything to do with you."
That comment, perceived by many as a reference to the man's perceived sexuality, ignited immediate backlash.
"Do you think everything about me has to do with gay marriage?" the man asked.
"Absolutely," Mace responded.
Moments later, as the man turned to walk away, Mace shouted, "Fk you!" prompting a stunned exchange that spiraled into further insults. She repeated the phrase multiple times, at one point adding, "You couldn’t take me on, baby. Stay the fk away from me."
The constituent, later identified as Ely Murray-Quick, posted his own footage of the encounter and said he stood by his decision to confront his congresswoman about her public availability.
"I asked a simple question," he wrote. "What followed was not just offensive, it was unhinged."
Murray-Quick also pointed out that while Mace touts votes in favor of same-sex marriage, her broader record includes support for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, opposition to gender-affirming care, and public attacks on transgender individuals.
"What she did wasn’t about defending herself," he wrote. "It was about demeaning someone she assumed was gay for daring to speak to her."
The reaction from political observers and civil rights advocates was swift. Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Brandon Wolf asked a question echoed by many online: "At some point, are you not embarrassed by your own behavior?"
Mace has not apologized. Instead, she doubled down, repeating that she felt threatened and portraying the constituent as part of a broader campaign to harass her. Her critics argue that this fits a pattern of behavior in which she lashes out at members of marginalized groups while claiming persecution.
In previous months, Mace has falsely accused a transgender activist of assaulting her with a handshake, mocked a young trans woman online using official congressional accounts, and remained silent when confronted about her participation in an incident where she and another lawmaker followed a woman into a restroom, mistakenly believing she was a transgender member of Congress.
Now, she faces renewed scrutiny not only for her rhetoric but for her fundamental understanding of her job.
Approaching an elected official in public and asking about town halls is not harassment, advocates point out—it’s civic engagement.
"That’s literally the job she campaigned for," one voter wrote. "If you can’t handle being asked when you’ll be holding public meetings, maybe you shouldn’t be in Congress."
The timing of the outburst is also notable. With Republicans nationwide facing protests over increasingly authoritarian rhetoric, several GOP lawmakers have scaled back public appearances. Many skipped in-person town halls altogether during the recent congressional recess.
Those who did hold events, like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Chuck Grassley, imposed tight controls on attendance and question formats. Greene’s event in Georgia ended with protesters being arrested and shocked with a stun gun after demanding answers.
Mace, who has aligned herself with Greene and other far-right lawmakers in recent years, appeared to adopt a similar tone of hostility in her own encounter, despite its impromptu setting.
Her political trajectory has shifted since first entering Congress with a relatively moderate tone. She has since embraced the hard-right populist wing of the Republican Party, particularly in her rhetoric.
Though she defeated her Democratic challenger in the last election, that win followed a redistricting process that removed Democratic-leaning areas from her district, making her path to reelection easier.
After the incident, Mace posted again on X, writing, "Anyone who dares take a shot at me — you better not miss."
To her supporters, this kind of language shows strength. To her critics, it reveals a growing disconnect between representative and constituent.
"You were asked about town halls," one commenter wrote. "Instead of answering, you insulted someone and screamed profanity. That’s not power. That’s insecurity."
The incident also reignited broader conversations about the responsibility public officials have when engaging with members of the public. Constituents are not always polite. Encounters may not always be convenient. But the basic premise of public service is, as the name implies, to serve.
Mace’s behavior now raises questions not just about decorum, but about whether she still believes she owes any accountability to the people she represents.
The constituent in this case, a South Carolina voter, expressed no regret.
"I won’t apologize for speaking up or for publicly asking a politician to do her job," Murray-Quick wrote.
The tension between personal identity, political ideology, and public accountability has never been sharper than it is in this era. And for lawmakers like Nancy Mace, how they respond to simple questions in public spaces may matter more than how they vote in chambers far from the people who put them there.
For now, Mace has chosen confrontation over conversation. Whether that will cost her politically remains to be seen. But one thing is clear—she is no longer avoiding the spotlight. She is charging into it, middle fingers raised, ready to fight not just political enemies, but the people she was elected to serve.
