When Bill Clinton became President of the United States in 1993, he became one of the most famous individuals in the world. The Arkansas native has had a long and successful career as a politician since then, but the scandalous affair with intern Monica Lewinsky has overshadowed a lot of his time in the White House.
Bill has been married to his wife, Hillary Clinton, for 49 years, even though the affair was a huge scandal. They met in college and have been together ever since, even though they have been through a lot of hard times.
Hillary wasn’t sure she wanted to marry Bill at first, and it took him three tries to get her to say yes. This is everything you need to know about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marriage.
William Jefferson Blythe III was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. Virginia Kelley, his mother, had just gone through a terrible tragedy: Bill’s father died in a car accident three months before Bill was born. When he was four years old, his mother married Roger Clinton. But his stepfather was not a good man at all. People say he was always intoxicated and hit Bill’s mom.
“This sounds crazy, but I never hated my stepfather, Roger Clinton.” “Even after he shot me in here while he was drunk, even after he hit my mom, even after I got big enough to stop him from hitting her,” Bill added.
“I knew he was a good guy and couldn’t stop drinking.” And that he was full of demons that he couldn’t manage, so he acted out in violent and terrible ways. I disliked what he did, but I never hated him.
Bill Clinton’s early years
He never told any of his school mates what was going on at home. Bill Clinton said in his book that he lived “two parallel lives” from the time he was a child until he became a politician. What his stepfather did was a secret that he kept from everyone.
Bill chose to take Roger Clinton’s last name when he was in high school, even if Roger Clinton did something bad. He preserved his biological father’s first and last names, William Jefferson, but not his last name.
Bill said, “I think that the fact that I was born without a father and spent my whole life trying to figure out what one looked like had a lot to do with how I turned out.” “Good and not so good.” But I think that, on the whole, there is more good than evil. But it had a lot to do with it.
Bill became a very good student after that. He was a great student and also a great saxophone musician at the same time. Many people imagined he would become a professional musician because of this. Of course, we know now that fate had other intentions.
Meeting John F. Kennedy
A very important meeting in high school started Bill on the path to politics. He went to the White House Rose Garden as a representative to Boys Nation and met then-President John F. Kennedy there. The image of the two shaking hands has become very famous.
Bill once said of the meeting, “I was about the third or fourth person in, and I sort of muscled my way up (to the front).”
A few of Clinton’s pals remembered that Bill couldn’t stop talking about the interesting incident that had just transpired on the drive home from the conference.
Jim Ramstad, who would later become a congressman from Minnesota, remembered Clinton saying to him, “Someday, I’m going to have that job.”
Bill went to Georgetown University after that. In 1968, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to go to Oxford University. Later, he got his law degree from Yale University.
His experience at Yale not only made it far more likely that he would go into politics, but it was also where he met Hillary Rodham, the love of his life.
Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s love story
At Yale, Bill and Hillary were both studying law. He talked about his early memories of her when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2016.
Bill said, “I met a girl in the spring of 1971.” We were in a class on civil and political rights the first time I met her. She had thick blonde hair, large spectacles, and no makeup on. And she had this strong, self-assured air about her that drew me in.
They had seen each other on campus many times, but one event in 1971 altered everything. Hillary and Bill were each studying in different parts of the law library. But Hillary saw that Bill was looking at her. The young woman put her book down and strolled up to Bill to talk about it.
“Hey, if you’re going to keep looking at me, I’m going to look back. We should at least know each other’s names. “Who are you? I’m Hillary Rodham.” Bill remembered Hillary telling him.
The future President couldn’t say anything at the time. He said who he was, and the two met again not long after. Bill liked Hillary and asked her out on a date.
Bill remembered at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, “She exuded this sense of strength and self-possession that I found magnetic.” “I just told her to walk down to the art museum.” We have been walking, talking, and laughing together ever since.
Two times, Hillary Clinton said no to Bill
It turns out that Bill and Hillary were both interested in politics. They started dating, and the next year they worked together on George McGovern’s presidential campaign. Hillary and Bill were happy with their work even if he lost the bid. They were getting along extremely well, which Bill hoped would last.
He asked Hillary to marry him in England in 1973. Sadly, Hillary said no to Bill Clinton and told him she needed more time. That said, she was very much in love with him.
“Bill was in an other world. It was a deeper degree of connectedness. In a Hulu documentary, Hillary stated, “I thought he was the most interesting man I had ever met and would ever meet.”
In 2016, Hillary told Lena Dunham, who stars in Girls, that she was “terrified” of losing her identity and becoming lost in “Bill’s force-of-nature-personality.” Not only that, but the young woman who wanted to be famous wasn’t sure she could handle being in the spotlight in the future. She knew Bill wanted to be a politician. Bill asked her to marry him again a year later. But she said no again, exactly like the previous time.
“I married my best friend” He said, “Okay, I’m not going to ask you again until you’re ready to say yes.” Hillary remarked, “That was a big part of why I was unsure and worried that I wouldn’t know who I was or what I could do if I married someone who was going to chart a path that he was very clear about.”
Bill gave Hillary time, and when he asked her a third time, she said yes. In 1975, the pair got married in the living room of their house in Arkansas. A limited handful of family and friends came to the ceremony.
“I married my best friend.” Bill recalled on their wedding day, “I was still amazed at how smart, strong, loving, and caring she was after being with her for more than four years.” Hillary said, “It was a big leap of faith, and I think most marriages are.”
The couple had their first child, daughter Chelsea Clinton, in 1980. Bill and Hillary went after their political goals and ended up in the White House. In 1978, Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas. In 1993, he was elected President of the United States. Hillary had also become one of the best and most powerful lawyers in the country at the same time.
However, the huge issue with Monica Lewinsky would dominate Bill’s eight years in the White House.
The Monica Lewinsky scandal with Bill Clinton
Lewinsky started working in the White House when she was 22. She and President Bill Clinton started flirting not long after she started working there, and it became into an affair that lasted for two years. Lewinsky said to President Clinton one day, “I have a crush on you.” He said, “Well, do you want to come into the back office?”
The world didn’t find out about Clinton and Lewinsky’s romance until 1998. Someone had secretly tapped Lewinsky’s phone and taped her calls, and in the end, she had to testify before a grand jury. Then, ultimately, the report, which was more than 3,000 pages long, was made public. It had all the specifics of Clinton and Lewinsky’s meetings.
President Clinton said she was lying when he said he hadn’t had a relationship “with that woman.” Lewinsky stated she would do everything to “get my privacy back.”
Lewinsky claimed in a TED lecture, “It was horrible that people could read the transcripts.” “But a few weeks later, the audio recordings (the recorded phone calls) were shown on TV and a lot of them were put online. It was quite painful to be humiliated in front of others. It was almost impossible to live.
The scandal may have ruined Clinton’s marriage. But Hillary chose to stay. She said in her 2003 memoir that deciding to stay with Bill was one of “the most difficult decisions I have made in my life.”
“I couldn’t believe he could do that to me.”
In a 2003 interview with Barbara Walters, Hillary said, “I was furious, I was dumbfounded, I was just beside myself with anger and disappointment.” “I can’t believe he would do that to me or anyone else.”
Bill and Hillary moved to Chappaqua, New York, after leaving the White House in 2001. There, the former president talked to a number of humanitarian and public policy groups while Hillary got involved in politics.
She ran for the Senate and won. She was a senator representing New York from 2001 until 2009. After that, Hillary went back to the White House, where she worked as Secretary of State for President Barack Obama. She ran for president in 2016, but Donald Trump won the election.
Bill and Hillary had other beautiful things to take care of, even if they lost. In 2014, they became grandparents for the first time. In 2016, they became grandparents for the second time. In 2019, they became grandparents for the third time.
Bill and Hillary Clinton today
Even though they’ve been through some incredibly hard times, Hillary and Bill Clinton’s love is still strong. The pair celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary in 2024. Bill Clinton tweeted about how much he loves his wife.
“Happy Anniversary, Hillary.” For 49 years, it’s been great. Here’s to many more! Bill Clinton sent out a tweet with a picture of the pair.
