Capitol rioter claims she's being silenced after getting backlash for tweet that said she wouldn't be jailed because she's white and blond

  • In March, Jenna Ryan tweeted that she wouldn't be imprisoned because she's white and blond.

  • She received a lot of backlash for the tweet, which a judge cited during her sentencing.

  • Ryan told Insider the backlash had made her afraid to speak her mind.

In March, Jenna Ryan posted a tweet boasting that she was blond, white, and "definitely not going to jail." Nine months later, she says the backlash she got for that tweet is making her feel silenced.

When a critic on Twitter told Ryan, who had been charged in the Capitol riot, that she would go to jail, she responded: "Definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I'm not going to jail. Sorry to rain on your hater parade. I did nothing wrong."

She has since pleaded guilty to parading on Capitol grounds. Last month she was sentenced to 60 days in a minimum-security federal prison in northern Texas.

At her sentencing, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the US District Court for the District of Columbia said, according to The Washington Post: "You've been very upfront that you feel no sense of shame or guilt. You suggested antifa was somehow involved. And perhaps most famously, you said that because you had blonde hair and white skin, you wouldn't be going to jail."

In an interview with Insider, she said she now believes the tweet was "very dumb" but added that it was "taken out of context."

She said she had sent the tweet to her "haters" after reports emerged that she had taken a private jet to Washington, DC, to attend the pro-Trump rally that preceded the riot.

"I've received thousands of emails, texts, tweets of people calling me a racist, entitled, insurrection Barbie ... And I was just told that they were going to recommend probation," she said. "And I was like, 'You all, no, I'm not going to prison. I'm sorry I have blond hair. I'm sorry.'"

"You can't hear inflection on a tweet," she said. "I was like, 'You all, I'm sorry. I have a good job. I'm sorry I'm happy. I'm sorry, you haters.'"

Jenna Ryan
Ryan standing by a broken window at the Capitol on January 6.Department of Justice

"Since this happened to me, I have a new level of respect for all levels of celebrity, high profile, or even just the ordinary person. Now before I tweet, or before I talk ... I stop and I go, 'Wait a minute, this could be totally off,'" she said.

She added that she was "not going to regret being myself" and standing up for herself. "But now it's changing my whole vernacular because I don't want to be a target," she said, adding, "I can't say 'Nazi' or 'rape' because my freedom of speech has been taken away from me."

She did not specify what she would be a target of, and she gave no reason for singling out the words "Nazi" and "rape."

Since being charged in the insurrection, she has said that she regrets entering Capitol grounds on January 6 but that she did not regret attending the rally.

Ryan is due to start her sentence next month.

In a TikTok video posted earlier this month, Ryan said she wanted to practice yoga, detox from alcohol, and lose 30 pounds in prison.

She also told Insider she was preparing for her time behind bars by learning prison slang and speaking to prison consultants.

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