Did Cory Booker play football before entering politics? All about the Senator who broke the record with a marathon 25-hour speech

You might describe yourself as ‘talkative’ in the bio of your social profiles, but we bet you can’t possibly beat Cory Booker when it comes to talking!
The man in question broke the record for the longest speech in US Senate history with a marathon address railing against President Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk.

US Senator Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat, set a new record on Tuesday after holding the Senate floor for more than 25 hours, shattering the previous record set by the late segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond.

Booker’s marathon address, a symbolic protest against President Donald Trump, in which he warned of a "grave and urgent" moment in American history, ended after over 25 hours. With only occasional pauses to take questions from fellow senators, Booker held forth for 25 and 5 minutes, 46 minutes longer than Thurmond’s filibuster against the Civil Rights Act.

The previous record was held by Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act in 1957.
Booker took to the Senate floor at around 19:00 local time on Monday evening, saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able.” It wasn’t until 25 hours and 5 minutes later at 20:06 on Tuesday that the 55-year-old senator, a former football tight end, finished speaking and limped off the floor.

Although it was not a filibuster - a speech designed to obstruct passage of a bill - Booker’s speech held up legislative business in the Republican-controlled Senate. The rules for such speeches require a speaker to remain standing and forgo bathroom breaks.

Cory Anthony Booker is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from New Jersey, a seat he has held since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Booker is the first African-American U.S. senator from New Jersey. He was the 38th mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, and served on the Municipal Council of Newark for the Central Ward from 1998 to 2002.
Although born in Washington, D.C., Booker was raised in Harrington Park, New Jersey. He attended Stanford University, receiving a BA in 1991 and a master's degree a year later. He attended Queen's College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship before attending Yale Law School. He won an upset victory for a seat on the Municipal Council of Newark in 1998, staging a 10-day hunger strike and briefly living in a tent to draw attention to urban development issues in the city.
Clearly, the 25-hour-long marathon speech isn’t the first time Booker went ‘too far’!
Booker ran for mayor in 2002 but lost to incumbent Sharpe James. He ran again in 2006 and defeated Deputy Mayor Ronald Rice. Booker's first term saw the doubling of affordable housing under development and the reduction of the city budget deficit from $180 million to $73 million. He was reelected in 2010.

Booker was elected to the U.S. Senate in New Jersey's 2013 special election and reelected in 2014 and 2020. Throughout his Senate tenure, Booker has written, sponsored, and voted for legislation advancing women's rights, affirmative action, same-sex marriage, and single-payer healthcare. He has pushed for economic reforms to address wealth inequality in the U.S., particularly the racial wealth gap.
Booker has pursued measures to reform the criminal justice system, combat climate change, and restructure national immigration policy. In foreign policy, he has voted for tougher sanctions against Iran, voiced support for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and lobbied for increased diplomacy in the Middle East. He became New Jersey's senior senator when Bob Menendez resigned on August 20, 2024.

Booker graduated from Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan, where he played varsity football and was named to the 1986 USA Today All-USA high school football team.
Booker ended up committing to Stanford out of high school. But when he got to Palo Alto, California, the expectations he carried with him from New Jersey failed to translate. He didn’t play a down until his junior year. And even when he did see the field, he was hardly the star he’d been back home. In four years of college football, Booker never started a game, caught just 20 passes, and scored one touchdown.

He graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1991 and a Master of Arts in sociology in 1992.

Booker has never been married, and in 2013, he was named one of Town & Country's "Top 40 Bachelors." Although he has generally tried to keep his personal life private, Booker has previously identified as a "straight male" and expressed a desire to date more in hopes of finding someone to settle down with.
In 2016, Booker dated Instagram influencer and poet Cleo Wade, according to Page Six. Wade was previously a stylist for pop star Katy Perry and was linked to actor Robert Pattinson, Page Six reported.
In March 2019, actress Rosario Dawson confirmed to TMZ that she was in a relationship with Booker. They had dated for two years. In 2022, People reported that Booker and actress Rosario Dawson had split, although they remained good friends.

While discussing their relationship, Booker told The Washington Post in 2019, "I mean, gosh, that night we talked for hours and hours. I had trouble asking for her phone number ... I think I said something really stupid like, 'Uh, how would I get in touch with you?' And she mercifully said something like, 'Oh, you want my phone number?' And my insides were like, 'Hell, yeah!'" Meanwhile, Dawson told The Post that Booker was "so charming."
In 2019, when he was dating Dawson, Booker publicly stated that he had a "boo," referring to a girlfriend, according to CNN.
Their relationship ended in February 2022.