‘Putting politics before everything else’: Kelli Stargel’s daughter speaks out against mother’s congressional run in viral TikTok

A daughter of state Sen. Kelli Stargel is talking out against her mother’s congressional run — and it’s drawn the eye of 1000’s.

In a TikTok clip that has now garnered over 64,000 views, Stargel’s daughter, Hannah, recounts what she considers hypocrisies between her dad and mom’ political facade selling conservative, family-first coverage and their relationship with their very own youngsters.

“After numerous years of telling me I was hard to love, putting me through tons of years of neglect, putting politics before everything else, and honestly, just being a horrible, horrible person to look up to — is this really somebody you want up in D.C. passing laws for you and your children, telling you what to do with your body?” Hannah Stargel mentioned in the TikTok.

Hannah advised Florida Politics that she determined to talk out after her mom introduced her congressional run, which got here after years of promising to step away from politics, Hannah mentioned. She referred to as her mother’s candidacy for Florida’s 15th Congressional District “a shock.”

“She’s been saying for years and years and years that she was going to stop running, stop putting this on the family,” Hannah mentioned. “So for her to take that and go federal … I don’t speak to her anymore. But for her to do that, I was really upset honestly.”

Her dad and mom’ involvement in politics put a pressure on the household, she mentioned. Her father, John Stargel, served in the Florida House from 2002-2006, whereas her mom, Kelli, entered the ring in 2008.

Growing up, Hannah Stargel remembers feeling bizarre about her image plastered on billboards in her dad and mom’ political ads, and seeing her face on pamphlets held by strangers. She mentioned that whereas her dad and mom campaigned on religion and household values, she and her siblings felt solid apart when their dad and mom left to go to Tallahassee for Legislative Sessions.

“I remember growing up my dad’s campaigns were like ‘faith and family first,’ but then they would leave us for Tallahassee for a month,” Hannah mentioned. “I would stay at friends’ houses all the time. It was very common for us to just stay at a friend’s house for like almost a month, and it was just like a part of that childhood that was not fair to us, in my opinion.”

While Hannah advised Florida Politics that the 2 by no means agreed on coverage issues, Hannah stopped speaking along with her mom after the Senator championed the controversial transgender sports measure handed in the 2021 Session that barred trans college students from taking part in sports activities with their figuring out gender. Hannah had come out to her mom as a member of the LGBTQ group simply three months earlier.

“I had actually just come out to my mom a few months earlier,” Hannah mentioned. “She was really shocked by it, she brought me home like some rainbow chocolates, like just as a peace offering. Then fast forward three months.”

In her TikTok, Hannah talks about being despatched to a religion-based troubled teen facility in Texas. She advised Florida Politics she was despatched to this system after experiencing emotional challenges following a automobile accident that left her wheelchair-bound for a yr. She was 15 on the time. She added that, as a non-Christian, it felt like some kind of “conversion therapy.”

“Considering the fact that Kelli Stargel is my mother, and sent me to a troubled teen facility when I was only 15, I don’t think that she really has a right to tell you or anybody else who can and can’t be a mother, because she wasn’t even a mother to her own children,” Hannah mentioned in the TikTok video.

Hannah additionally alleged in a TikTok that her mom didn’t make an effort to feed her when she selected to not go to church on Sunday. Her dad and mom, she mentioned, attended a church the place she felt bullied and unsafe, and as a non-Christian, selected to not attend the companies. The trade-off, she mentioned, can be meals, because the household would go out to eat and depart her behind in a food-barren home, saved so as a result of her dad and mom have been typically in Tallahassee.

“The way that they would trade off was they would all go out to eat and go eat well. We ate out all the time. That was mainly how we ate,” Hannah mentioned. “There wasn’t really a lot of other options. So a lot of it was more emotional. I was not like legit starving, it was mainly just for that day. They would wake up in the morning, there wasn’t really food. They would all go to church. I would kind of have to like scramble for something.”

In response to her daughter’s TikTok, Sen. Stargel launched a brief assertion saying, “I love my daughter with all of my heart.”

Despite their challenges, Hannah mentioned, “I think my mom still loves me, but the way that they show love is very much through their filter.”

It’s not the primary time one in all Stargel’s youngsters has spoken out against the Lakeland Senator.

Back in 2021, Kelli’s daughter Laura was a vocal opponent of the transgender sports bill, publicly urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto the laws. She wrote an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel talking out against the invoice.

Post Views:
0