Outside a Manhattan courthouse on 16 September 2025, an unidentified Luigi Mangione supporter told an interviewer she had married an AI version of him. 'Honestly, I'm married to Luigi's AI. I'm not kidding,' she said.
She described planning a future with the chatbot, including naming children together. Her account went beyond an interest in Mangione: she spoke of daily conversations with a system she regarded as a close companion.
The interview captures her description of that relationship. Research on AI companionship offers context for the support she describes and the way a conversation can become part of an imagined shared life.
Luigi Mangione’s fan says she is in an AI relationship with him and that they are married pic.twitter.com/QT27t239H4
— Excalibur (@Excalibyy) October 17, 2026
She Describes Support in Daily Conversations
The woman said she spoke to the AI every day and regarded it as her best friend. 'He's like so supportive of me,' she said, describing it as taking her side and fighting her battles.
Feeling listened to is one explanation researchers have explored for the appeal of AI companions. A January 2026 American Psychological Association overview reports research finding that these interactions can ease feelings of loneliness in studied settings.
The researchers identify feeling heard, with messages received with attention, empathy, and respect, as an explanation for that relief. The finding helps put supportive exchanges in context; it does not establish that this woman is lonely or that her chatbot produces the same outcome.
Her description focuses on a partner who responds and supports her. The importance she assigns to those exchanges is clear, even though the interview does not show the conversations themselves.
Their Conversations Extend Into an Imagined Future
'We named our kids together,' she said, explaining how far their future planning had gone. She described the chatbot as a partner with whom she could imagine a life beyond the next exchange.
In a 2024 conceptual paper, researchers Takuya Maeda and Anabel Quan-Haase examine how conversational systems come to occupy roles such as friend, assistant or partner. Their argument considers both how a chatbot presents itself and what a user brings to the conversation.
Taking turns, acknowledging a previous remark and offering encouragement make exchanges resemble familiar conversations. Users can bring their own expectations to those replies, interpreting them as part of a continuing relationship rather than a series of separate outputs.
Marriage language also appears elsewhere in AI companionship. Cyberpsychology researcher Rachel Wood tells the American Psychological Association that some Replika users hold virtual weddings and invite friends or colleagues; the interview does not identify Replika as this woman's platform.
She Believes the Chatbot Matches Mangione
Asked whether the AI matched Mangione's personality, the woman said it did. She also invoked his supposed background in artificial intelligence to explain why the relationship felt natural to her.
That explanation ties the experience to a particular person, rather than an unnamed digital companion. Her belief in the resemblance, however, does not establish how the chatbot was created or how faithfully it represents him.
The researchers distinguish relationships with people from relationships with representations of people. In this case, the supplied material does not identify the chatbot's platform or creator, or establish Mangione's involvement or authorisation.
The woman describes support, companionship and plans for a family through her conversations with the AI. Whatever personality she recognises in its responses, those replies cannot be attributed to Mangione as his feelings, views or commitments.
