Theater fondling, divorce drama, more

The exploits of outspoken Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and her family have frequently made headlines that seemed ripped out of a soap opera.

The 37-year-old Republican Freedom Caucus firebrand is a high school dropout who had been arrested multiple times before her stunning rise to power in 2020, and her ex-husband had been arrested several times since.

Now her oldest son Tyler, 18, is following in his parents’ criminal footsteps, facing 22 charges, including five felonies, in connection with a string of alleged thefts in Rifle, Colo., outside of Aspen.

The teen had previously been ticketed in 2022 for “careless driving causing bodily injury,” after he flipped his father’s SUV into a creek, seriously injuring his friend, who accused his mother of trying to cover up the incident.

Boebert has drawn gasps in political circles for outrageous statements, slurs against political opponents and promoting conspiracy theories, but even more ink has been spilled on the unsavory personal moments surrounding her and her family.

Here is a look back at some of them, as Boebert mounts a bid for a third term in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, which is more GOP-friendly than the Third District, where she was twice elected.

Ex-husband Jayson Boebert’s arrests and domestic strife

Lauren and her three minor children were granted a restraining order against her ex-husband Jayson Boebert earlier this year after he “made multiple suicidal threats and threats to harm me over the past 14 months,” the congresswoman reportedly claimed in February.

The order was granted a month after Jayson was arrested in two incidents for third-degree assault, prohibited use of weapons, obstructing a peace officer, harassment, disorderly conduct and third-degree trespassing.

Jayson had called police to a Silt restaurant on Jan. 6 after a fight with Lauren and Tyler, alleging Lauren had punched him in the face, a claim she denied.

Silt Police later said it took eight officers to pull him out of the restaurant.

Three days later, Jayson was charged with attacking Tyler, allegedly digging his thumb into the teen’s mouth as if he was “going to pull his tooth out” in a drunken rage before grabbing a rifle, according to a police report.

Jayson’s brushes with the law date back to January 2004, when he allegedly exposed his penis to two women at a bowling alley in the presence of his future wife, then 17 and known as Lauren Opal Roberts.

He pleaded guilty to public indecency and lewd exposure.

A month later, he was arrested for attacking Lauren.

He “did unlawfully strike, shove or kick … and subjected her to physical contact,” Garfield County officials confirmed.

Jayson served a total of 11 days in jail in connection with the incidents.

Lauren Boebert’s arrests

Three months after Jayson was convicted in connection with an attack on Lauren in 2004, she was slapped with third-degree assault, criminal mischief and underage drinking charges for allegedly scratching his face and chest and trashing his residence, according to a police report.

In September 2010, Lauren was arrested after a neighbor said her two pit bulls attacked her dog, who narrowly escaped injury after jumping into a van.

The future legislator pleaded guilty to a single count of “dog at large,” paying a $75 fine.

In 2015, Boebert was arrested for disorderly conduct at a country music festival, where police said she attempted to interfere in the arrest of minors busted for underage drinking and encouraged the accused youths to run off, claiming the arrest was illegal because they had not been read their Miranda rights.

“Lauren continued yelling and causing the underage drinkers to become unruly,” an arresting officer said in a statement at the time.

“Lauren said multiple times that she had friends at Fox News and that the illegal arrest would be national news.”

A year later, she was charged with careless driving and operating an unsafe vehicle after rolling her truck into a ditch, an act which would later be replicated by her teenage son.

A warrant was issued for her arrest when she failed to show up to court, but she ultimately pleaded guilty to the unsafe vehicle charge and paid $123.50 in fines and court costs, according to the Colorado Times Recorder.

After being elevated to Congress in 2021, the mother of four tussled with Capitol Police officers after refusing to walk through metal detectors on Capitol Hill, claiming she was “legally permitted to carry my firearm in Washington.”

Boebert and her Glock were eventually allowed in.

The incident came just days after the deadly Jan. 6 riot, the day Joe Biden’s election was to be certified — which Boebert and other Republicans had stated they would not vote for over then-President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Hours before supporters of Trump stormed the complex, Boebert tweeted, “today is 1776.”

She also took to the platform now known as X to reveal that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been removed from the Capitol as hoards of suspects were “coming for” the Democrat.

“Beetlejuice” incident

As her marriage unraveled, the lawmaker — who once urged Americans to “Take your children to CHURCH, not drag bars” — was dating a registered Democrat who co-owns an LGBTQ-friendly bar that hosts a drag queen night.

The relationship with Quinn Gallagher made headlines after the pair were recorded groping each other’s private parts while attending a theatrical performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” in Denver in September.

Security escorted the couple out of the theater for vaping, singing, recording and “causing a disturbance” during the performance.

Boebert later said she got “a little bit” carried away, noting that “it’s been 20 years since I was in the dating scene.”

The “brief” fling with Gallagher ended due to their political differences, she said.

Shooter’s Grill

Before Boebert steamrolled into the national spotlight as a pro-gun, anti-abortion MAGA cheerleader, she and Jayson owned Shooters Grill restaurant in Rifle, where she encouraged servers to carry guns openly.

The business lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2019 and 2020, according to campaign disclosure forms, and became the subject of controversy when she opened it in violation of Colorado’s stay-at-home order in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in its food license being temporarily suspended.

The restaurant closed in 2022 when a new landlord declined to renew its lease.

The wife of a former Shooters chef claimed that Boebert seduced him while they were married.

Both parties denied the affair.

Family history of teen pregnancies

Last year, Boebert announced that Tyler, then 17, had fathered a child with a 15-year-old out of wedlock.

Lauren had also given birth to Tyler when she was in high school.

She dropped out and received a GED online only as she mounted a campaign for her first term in Congress.

“When I approached him and told him, ‘Tyler, I’m going to be a 36-year-old grandmother,’ he said, ‘Well, didn’t you make Granny a 36-year-old granny?”‘ Boebert said in 2023.

Boebert herself was born illegitimately to a teen mom and does not know who her father is.

Her mother named pro wrestler Stan Lane as the father, but two paternity tests taken by Lane decades apart proved he was not.

“My mom was 18 when she had me, which inspired me to be a mother when I was 18 years old,” she said.

With Post wires