Philly Councilmember Jimmy Harrity interacted with racy social media accounts for months

City Councilmember Jimmy Harrity this year interacted with racy social media accounts from a profile he also used to disseminate updates on local politics and Philadelphia government.

In an interview Monday, Harrity acknowledged that he operated the Instagram Threads account, which from January through March sent replies to accounts posting photos of scantily clad women. Harrity made the social media account private after being contacted by The Inquirer.

The account’s profile picture is a photo of Harrity and Councilmember Isaiah Thomas raising their fists in the air at what appears to be a union rally. Harrity said he created the account to follow posts from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and then started publishing his own updates and engaging with other users’ posts.

Before it became private, all of the original posts from Harrity’s Threads account concerned Council or political events, such as photos from news conferences and a flier for a fundraiser for his campaign.

“We name 59th street outside Overbrook high-school Will Smith Way!!” Harrity posted recently, with a photo showing him and other Council members standing with the West Philadelphia-born and -raised actor at the street-renaming event.

But almost all of the public replies sent by his account to other users’ messages were short responses to posts featuring provocative photos of women.

For many of the replies, Harrity simply sent greetings. The user chubbyygirlstacyy, for instance, in late December posted suggestive photos of a woman along with a suggestive message.

Harrity responded in early January: “Hello.”

Later in January, user eva.fax posted, “Can i text u on insta?” with a photo of a woman in a bikini, and Harrity responded, “Yes.”

None of the suggestive posts were directed at Harrity specifically, and they likely appeared in his feed based on Threads’ content algorithm. But the Council member said Monday he thought they were from constituents attempting to contact him.

“I thought people were reaching out to me on it, and I was responding, ‘Hi,’ ‘Hello,’ because they kept saying they were trying to get a hold of me,” Harrity said. “Then I realized it was some kind of scam thing — women just trying to get followers.”

That rationale, however, fails to explain some other replies from Harrity’s account. When eva.fax in March posted a photo with the caption “Could you describe me in one word?” Harrity replied, “Smoking.”

And when naughtykatenasty in late March posted a photo of a woman’s rear end with the question “Too big or perfect? Be honest,” Harrity said, “Perfect.”

Harrity said he doesn’t recall posting those replies but acknowledged he must have sent them.

“I am a guy at some point, you know what I’m saying?” he said. “I’m not responding to anybody. I’m married. I got no desire for another headache. … I apologize for the misconception.”

Harrity sent some of the suggestive replies during business hours, according to time stamps, but none appear to have been sent during a Council meeting.

One of Council’s more colorful members, Harrity won his seat in a special election in 2022 and was elected to a full four-year term in 2023. A Democrat who lives in Kensington, he represents the city at-large, and he has close ties to party leadership, especially State Sen. Sharif Street, who chairs the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and is the son of former Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street.

Harrity, who is in recovery and had brushes with the law earlier in his career, has been open about his checkered past and unusual path to public office, an experience that he has said has made him a believer in second chances.

» READ MORE: A bar fight, a heart attack, and 12 years of sobriety: Jimmy Harrity’s path to Philadelphia City Council

That enthusiasm appears to have extended to his social media activity.

In January, Threads user eva_kokoy posted a photo of a woman in a bikini on the beach with the message “I’m sure nobody cares, but I’ve been sober for 287 days.”

Harrity replied: “Keep coming back it works if you work it!”

Staff writer Max Marin contributed to this article.