Oddball NYC ‘tenant advocate’ Cea Weaver has Mamdani as her phone wallpaper – and her reason is suss

City Hall’s radical tenant advocate Cea Weaver has a picture of her boss, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as her phone wallpaper, she weirdly revealed in a glowing magazine piece.

The odd moment came as Weaver, the director for the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, sat down with New York Magazine in March ahead of one of the new administration’s “Rental Ripoff” hearings, where tenants can sound off on their landlords.  

Mamdani’s “housing czar,” who has faced a whirlwind of backlash over her controversial social media posts, showed off her work phone’s background to the writer — and provided a bizarre reason for it, according to the story published Monday.

“We are seated at little desks in a classroom at a Queens high school and she shows me her work phone’s backdrop, which is a photo of Mamdani,” it reads, “not out of professional devotion but so she can tell the otherwise identical devices apart by having her boss’s face looking back at her when she picks one up.”

Weaver, 37, has long had a chummy relationship with Hizzoner, her 34-year-old Democratic Socialist of America comrade, dating back to his first job in elected office as a Queens state Assembly member.

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The glossy publication even detailed Weaver was still adjusting to calling Mamdani “the mayor” — instead of by his first name.

But the longtime activist helped contribute to a groundswell of backlash against City Hall at the start of Mamdani’s mayoralty when her past social media posts resurfaced, revealing her extreme positions on housing and private property.

The Brooklyn resident once branded homeownership a “weapon of white supremacy” and called on the government to “seize private property,” as well as numerous other eyebrow-raising remarks.

The NY Mag article touched on Weaver’s far-left views, painting her as a victim of a media “circus” and even referring to her as a “Post punching bag” in its headline.

“That’s not how I would say things today,” she told the mag of the past inflammatory posts, while saying the press coverage was “at a level of intensity that was new.”

Michael Brochstein/Zuma / SplashNews.com

The profile mostly detailed Weaver’s new role as an advocate for renters and her background as a housing organizer — dubbing her a “minor celebrity of the New York left” before she took the government gig.

The magazine described how one tenant who saw Weaver at the March “Rental Ripoff” hearing inside the the Academy of American Studies in Long Island City was starstruck.

The person “gushes at first sight,” the piece details, also noting that an event volunteer requested a selfie with her and another attendee told Weaver “I’m excited to see you. The housing czar!”

“The tenant-organizing stuff is not something that we’re doing because it’s nice,” Weaver told the mag. 

“We’re doing this because it literally makes our work better and more efficient and more possible.”