Meet Stephanie Oyen —The Elizabeth Warren Look-A-Like Met Senator At Rally
Seeing double!
Instagram In this day and age, our politicians are a little bit like movie stars. We clamor after opportunities to meet the ones we adore in person, to shake their hands and tell them how much we admire them. We dress up as them for holidays and secretly preen when people tell us that we could be their real life twin! Who is Stephanie Oyen? She's a woman from Minnesota who knows this all too well herself! You see, Stephanie, while not a politician herself, has something in common with presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren: she looks just like her, and the Senator agrees!
1. Warren Meets "Warren"
When Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 70, stood shaking hands with one of her campaign supporters, Stephanie Oyen, 50, in Minnesota people couldn't stop smiling and taking photographs, and that wasn't just because everyone was psyched about how well the campaign was going. People were staring because Stephanie made the decision to don a blue blazer and a pair of glasses for the rally she was attending to support Warren. On anyone else they would just be a few accessories donned for a night out, but on Stephanie they transformed her entirely: she looks exactly like Elizabeth Warren.
2. The Wild Rally
This was the first stop Warren made on her campaign within the state and the expected turnout for the rally was high. Stephanie arrived about 20 minutes or so before Warren was due to arrive. The numbers turned out to be even higher than people anticipated. In fact, the event was so jam packed full of supporters that the organizers had to move the whole thing outside. Even in that massive crowd, Stephanie stood out: people were desperate to pose for photographs with her, and she obliged them. She explained she wasn't Warren, but nobody seemed to care.
3. The Selfie Explosion
“People kept taking selfies with me, even when I said I’m not her. They would say, ‘Who will know? No one’s going to know,'" revealed Stephanie to the Washington Post. While obviously Stephanie isn't Elizabeth Warren, fans of the Senator didn't mind posing with her double. Stephanie was born and raised in Minnesota and now lives in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis. For her, Warren's part in changing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made her a hero, since Stephanie has spent her life working in the mortgage industry and was happy to see someone making positive changes.
4. Getting To Meet Warren
Getting the chance to hear Warren speak solidified Stephanie's already positive opinion of the Senator. "Blown away," is how she described her reaction to Warren's speech at the rally. After it was over, Stephanie got in line along with countless others for her chance to meet Warren, shake her hand, and get her picture taken. When Warren finally saw her in line her reaction was hilarious. “She pointed at me and said, ‘We need to talk!" After their quick initial meeting, Stephanie was on cloud nine, so imagine her delight when later on one of Warren's staff brought her back so they could talk a little bit more.
5. Losing The Disguise
For Stephanie that tiny detail made a huge difference. In this private conversation, she got a chance to really share her appreciation with Warren directly. “I was able to tell her I really admire you — clearly,” she said. Once it was all said and done, Stephanie decided she should ditch her costume in the hopes of cutting down on the attention, but it wasn't to be. She was still plagued by reporters and photographers who kept mistaking her for the presidential hopeful. One photographer who stopped Stephanie for a picture even said that he wasn't totally sure he believed she was telling him the real story!
6. The Difference She Sees
Although Stephanie knows that her Warren costume is always sure to be a hit, she has to admit that as for herself, she doesn't really see the similarity to the Senator in her own face as much as other people around her seem to do. Stephanie did admit that for her the fact that she is twenty years younger than the Senator could play a role in her own perception, something she ruefully admitted herself when asked. “I’m 20 years younger!” she said. “But that’s fine, I admire her, and I’m happy to be mistaken for her.” Hey Stephanie, you don't look old, Warren just looks young!
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cats, Batman and Margot. She's an experienced generalist with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, pop culture, and true crime.