WASHINGTON — Alice Marie Johnson was watching the Tremendous Bowl with two of her sisters on Sunday night time when she noticed her personal face i
WASHINGTON — Alice Marie Johnson was watching the Tremendous Bowl with two of her sisters on Sunday night time when she noticed her personal face in an commercial amid the commercials for Doritos and Audis.
Ms. Johnson was serving a life sentence in an Alabama jail for a nonviolent drug conviction when the president commuted her sentence in 2018. The fact tv star Kim Kardashian West had found Ms. Johnson’s story on social media and personally appealed to him on her behalf.
And now the 64-year-old African-American lady was the star of the Trump marketing campaign’s multimillion-dollar Tremendous Bowl advert, a part of an effort by Mr. Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, to achieve black voters. Footage of Ms. Johnson reuniting together with her household after almost 22 years in jail was considered by 102 million soccer and Jennifer Lopez followers watching the sport.
For Ms. Johnson, who can’t vote within the election due to her felony conviction, all of it got here as a little bit of a shock.
“I knew it was a powerful chance that I used to be going to be within the advert,” Ms. Johnson mentioned in an interview on Thursday afternoon. “A minimum of per week earlier than, I’d been informed there was a chance. I didn’t know I’d be the complete advert. I assumed I may be someplace within the advert.”
The advert that includes Ms. Johnson was made by the Trump marketing campaign late final yr. However the president settled on utilizing the 30-second spot in the course of the Tremendous Bowl solely within the days main as much as the sport, individuals acquainted with the method mentioned.
Ms. Johnson described the expertise of seeing it for the primary time, in actual time, from her lodge room in Miami as “thrilling,” and the response, after the very fact, as out-of-body. “I used to be going via the airport and I might see individuals making an attempt to determine, ‘Is that that girl?’ I had somebody within the seat subsequent to me say, ‘Are you that girl who Kim Kardashian helped come residence?’”
Since her launch, Ms. Johnson has labored as a felony justice reform activist, and revealed a memoir, “After Life: My Journey From Incarceration to Freedom.” It was a coincidence that she occurred to even be in Miami, this yr’s Tremendous Bowl host metropolis, on Sunday night time, the place she was attending an occasion for the Stand Collectively Basis, which helps individuals dwelling in poverty discover jobs.
Mr. Trump, over the previous few days, has proved himself to be a grasp of elevating a heartwarming story that impacts only one individual as proof of the bigger good his administration is doing for working individuals’s lives. At his State of the Union address on Tuesday night time, he stunned Stephanie Davis, a single mom, with a scholarship that might permit her fourth-grade daughter to attend the varsity of her alternative.
Ms. Johnson mentioned she was conscious of some backlash to the Tremendous Bowl commercial, with critics calling it a political play aimed toward papering over Mr. Trump’s document on race. However she mentioned highlighting her private story was good for her motion, even when some noticed it as a cynical maneuver. “Some individuals say, ‘Oh, this poor girl is getting used,’” she mentioned. “I don’t really feel like a prop. To have felony justice reform because the centerpiece of the Tremendous Bowl advert, that lifts everybody up on this area.”
Ms. Johnson mentioned she was not a political individual and didn’t have any plans to marketing campaign for Mr. Trump. However she mentioned she was proud to be the face of his marketing campaign on tv.
“I’ve been such a supply of satisfaction for him,” she mentioned. “Who doesn’t wish to present one thing they’re pleased with throughout an election yr? That’s what all of the candidates do. For him to focus on me, it makes me know he’s not solely proud, he’s tremendous proud.”
She described herself as “not an knowledgeable in politics” however somebody preventing for “something that advances my trigger, something that advances my reason behind bringing individuals residence.”
Ms. Johnson wouldn’t say whether or not she would vote for Mr. Trump if she might. “I can’t vote, and that’s a part of what I’m preventing for,” she mentioned. However as for criticizing Mr. Trump, she mentioned that was merely out of the query for her.
“Are you able to think about turning on somebody who saves your life?” she mentioned. “Simply on a private stage, are you able to think about?”