Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), who was caught tweeting a 24-year-old bikini model during the State of the Union address, admitted on Thursday that he was in fact tweeting his long-lost daughter. Cohen discovered the woman was his daughter just three years ago.
In a bizarre twist to an embarrassing episode for the 63-year-old bachelor, Cohen also conceded he discovered that the woman, identified as Victoria Brink on Twitter, was his daughter by doing a Google search.
“I Googled her mother, found out she had a child and the math looked pretty accurate,” he said. “The mom told me we had a lot of catching up to do.”
During the State of the Union address, Cohen tweeted this to Brink: “nice to know you were watchin SOTU (state of the union.) Happy Valentines beautiful girl. Ilu.” “Ilu” is used on the Internet to mean, “I love you.” Cohen deleted that tweet 15 minutes after it posted.
When his office was pressed for details about the strange tweet, Cohen’s press secretary Michael Pagan said on Wednesday that Cohen told him she was “the daughter of a longtime friend and I consider her like family.”
Pagan said Cohen explained to his senior staff on Thursday that Brink was his daughter and they had been “trying to get to know each other these past three years.”
“The reason why he couldn’t tell anyone is because he was trying to protect her and the family because they’re private citizens,” Pagan said.
Cohen first told NBC News that Brink was his daughter before he and his staff released more details about Cohen’s relationship with Brink.