Meet Mama Lu, Pittsburgh’s 95-year-old social media star

Mara Rago and her mother Lucille, aka “Mama Lu,” could have their own TV show. Throughout our interview, the duo bickers like only mothers and daughters could, with Mara elbowing Lucille to speak up as Lucille shushes her, telling her daughter to hurry up and answer a question. A professional photographer, Mara has featured Lucille on her social media for years. The two live together in Swissvale, and one evening, Mara decided to film Lucille as they watched The Bachelor . “She would have all these things to say about the girls, so I started putting it on my page as a joke for my friends, because they all watched it,” Mara tells Pittsburgh City Paper . “I said, ‘This is The Bachelor review with Mama Lu,’ and somebody showed it to WTAE, and they put her on their page.” Mama Lu got 10,000 likes on former WTAE anchor Kelly Frey’s Instagram page. Profiles on other media outlets, including Newsweek , followed. Mara then created TikTok and Instagram accounts that chronicle Mama Lu’s escapades, including swimsuit reveals in her backyard pool and her morning trips down her chairlift with her deaf cat Angel, adopted from Bridges of Kuwait, a local rescue. There is also plenty of banter with her daughter. The TikTok currently has 12.5 million followers, and the Instagram has over 37,000 fans. Mama Lu and her daughter Mara Credit: Courtesy of Mara Rago Lucille was born in 1930 in Homewood. “It was just a small little neighborhood back then; it was really beautiful,” Lucille tells City Paper . She and Mara recently drove by the house she grew up in. The two men sitting on the porch drinking beers offered to have Lucille walk through the home. Unfortunately, due to mobility issues, she couldn’t, but in typical Pittsburgh neighborly fashion, the men ran inside to video the house’s interior. Lucille was pleased to see that many parts of the home were the same, including the mirror above the fireplace man