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As the daughter of 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton — and very nearly the 45th with Hillary Clinton — Chelsea Clinton has lived the kind of privileged lifestyle in which even the majority of the 1% can only dream. But that doesn’t mean the former first daughter hasn’t faced hardships during her time on this Earth.
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Indeed, Chelsea unwittingly became a public figure after being propelled into the spotlight at the age of 12. As we all know, very few child stars make it through to adulthood unscathed. Even after becoming a strong, independent woman herself, the one-time White House resident has had to deal with everything from nepo baby accusations and constant negative rumors concerning her marriage to shaming remarks about her abilities as a mother and losing friends. Here’s a look at 14 times the children’s writer experienced the more tragic side of life.
Chelsea Clinton had to deal with public verbal abuse from a young age
Chelsea Clinton was only an infant when she joined her parents Bill and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for the former’s gubernatorial race in Arkansas. Before she even entered her teens, Chelsea found herself plastered across the newspapers when her father was elected the 42nd president of the United States. Unfortunately, political commentators and the general public didn’t appear to care that Chelsea didn’t put herself in the firing line.
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Chelsea Clinton has been open about the horrible treatment she received during her father’s presidency. “I’ve had so much vitriol flung at me for as long as I can literally remember, people saying awful things to me even as a child,” Chelsea told The Guardian in 2018 without offering too much detail.
Luckily, the former first daughter learned to handle all the unjust criticism from a young age. “To retaliate with crass language or insult someone personally — I just don’t think I’m built that way,” she continued. Chelsea also believes such vitriol is more reflective of the individual dishing it out. “The savagery that is directed at me, sometimes it’s because I’m just the person that they happen to see and recognize, and they’re angry, and so that anger kind of spills out,” she reasoned.
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The former president’s daughter was once left behind by her parents at the Kremlin
In 2022, Chelsea and Hillary Clinton graced the stage of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” for a challenge designed to test their mother-daughter bond. When asked about their “craziest family vacation memory,” Hillary recalled a traumatic moment she hoped that Chelsea wouldn’t have remembered.
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The former secretary of state told Fallon about the time she and husband Bill Clinton were on a presidential state visit in Russia. The couple had also taken their only child along for the ride. But after leaving the Kremlin for the airport, they suddenly realized — no doubt in a “Home Alone” style — they forgot one very important carry-on. “I mean, can you imagine leaving my only child in the Kremlin?” Hillary revealed to the stunned audience. “Especially with everything that has happened?”
Bill Clinton’s affair rocked his daughter’s family life
Bill Clinton experienced the biggest scandal of his political career in 1998 when news emerged he was in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky for well over a year after she entered the White House as an intern in 1995. Although the 42nd president was eventually acquitted from Senate impeachment on the perjury charges that resulted, his reputation took an unrecoverable hit. His daughter, then still only in her late teens, also had to bear the brunt of the fallout.
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Chelsea Clinton’s handling of the scandal was first revealed by Hillary Clinton shortly after it broke. “She’s all right,” the first lady told NBC’s “Today” (via CNN) about all the damaging headlines. “She has seen many examples of it in her short life. So it’s not a pleasant experience, but it’s given her the sort of grounding to be able to see what this is and get through it.”
Reverend Jesse Jackson also vouched that Chelsea was much wiser than her years in a chat with AP (via CNN). “She was born and bred in the heat of battle,” he said, having spoken on the phone to the first daughter. “That contributed mightily to her maturity.” Chelsea herself remained quiet on the subject until 2008 when she was explicitly asked about Hillary’s response to the affair. “I do not think that is any of your business,” she fired back at the Butler University student who posed the question (via CBS News).
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Chelsea Clinton was mocked as a teen on Saturday Night Live
One thing you didn’t hear much about amid all the 50th anniversary “Saturday Night Live” celebrations was the times the comedic institution mocked a 13-year-old who’d been thrust into the public spotlight solely as a result of her father’s political ambitions. Yes, proving the 1990s were a very different time, Chelsea Clinton was regularly the butt of the joke in the era that gave us Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, and Julia Sweeney.
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The latter was a repeat offender, often delivering impersonations of the first daughter so unflattering that Hillary Clinton felt compelled to write an official complaint. “People were saying how unattractively I was playing Chelsea, and all I did was not wear makeup and put braces on,” Sweeney argued on the “Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Space” podcast. “If you say that, you’re saying I’m unattractive!”
Carvey and Myers weren’t innocent either, comparing Chelsea’s attractiveness to that of Al Gore’s daughters in a “Wayne’s World” sketch that wouldn’t pass muster today. “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels, who Hillary wrote to personally, later said (via The Seattle Times), “We felt, upon reflection, that if it was in any way hurtful, it wasn’t worth it. She’s a kid, a kid who didn’t choose to be in public life.”
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Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter was dismissed as a nepo baby
In 2011, Chelsea Clinton landed a special correspondent job on NBC, a role in which she was required to report on “Making a Difference” stories for “Rock Center with Brian Williams” and “Nightly News.” Of course, without any prior broadcasting experience, and with a reported $600,000 annual salary offered, too, the erstwhile first daughter was labeled a nepo baby before the term came into fashion.
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Indeed, the initial reviews for Clinton’s foray into TV were scathing, with The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever writing, “Either we’re spoiled by TV’s unlimited population of giant personalities or this woman is one of the most boring people of her era.” Things didn’t get much better, even when her contract was surprisingly renewed.
In a damning report published by BuzzFeed, various NBC employees appeared to go out of their way to stick the knife in. One staffer, for example, argued Clinton had been “horrible” while interviewing, adding, “There were ground rules, what she could and couldn’t report, only good news, no politics.” Luckily for the disgruntled, they didn’t have to put up with such nepotism for too long. Clinton left the network in 2014.
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Chelsea Clinton was forced to study under strict security measures
In 1997, Chelsea Clinton left the family nest for the first time to study history at Stanford University. But it’s fair to say the first daughter, whose father Bill Clinton was fours years into his reign as POTUS at the time, didn’t always enjoy the normal college experience.
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In fact, on Chelsea’s very first day, she was flanked by her parents and the Secret Service, and watched on by no less than 250 journalists all determined to report on every minute detail. Her dorm room was fitted with bulletproof glass, while the hallways outside were equipped with cameras. She was even rumored to have had a microchip implanted in her neck so then her whereabouts could be tracked at all times.
And when it came to romance, then her suitors had to get the nth degree from her father. One anonymous man told Vanity Fair that shortly before his only date with Chelsea, Bill emailed him to ensure no secrets were spilled to the press. It’s perhaps little wonder, therefore, that for her master’s degree, Chelsea decided to study on the other side of the Atlantic!
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The media criticized Chelsea Clinton’s partying lifestyle while at Oxford
Chelsea Clinton couldn’t do right for doing wrong as a student when it came to the press. While attending Stanford University, she was pilloried for giving the tabloids little to work with. Then, when she headed across the pond to Oxford University, she was essentially accused of giving them too much.
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“Is Chelsea Clinton putting town before gown,” came the headline in a The Daily Telegraph piece about the former first daughter’s new penchant for partying in the glare of the spotlight. “Looks like Chelsea Clinton has inherited her father’s lust gene,” argued the New York Daily News after she was spotted getting a little amorous on the dance floor in Italy with then-boyfriend Ian Klaus. A spokesperson for Oxford University even made sure to publicly remind her she needed to be in residence at least half of the 11 term-time weeks.
“I’ve been very good to you,” Clinton was reported by Vanity Fair as saying to paparazzo Clive Postlethwaite, no doubt referring to the period in which she graced everything from Donatella Versace fashion shows to glitzy film premieres. “The press is still all over me in London, but on the continent I can do what I want,” she told Women’s Wear Daily, suggesting the constant attention, and constant judgments, were taking their toll.
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Chelsea Clinton had to constantly deal with rumors about her marriage
In 2011, less than a year after the couple walked down the aisle, reports surfaced that there was already trouble with Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky’s oft-strange marriage. “What Went Wrong,” came the front-page headline from Star magazine (via Vanity Fair) accompanied by a picture of the first daughter looking like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. But according to those really in the know, there was absolutely no substance to the rumors.
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Speculation began to mount when it was discovered that Marc Mezvinsky, who makes a living as a hedge funder, had gone on a lengthy skiing vacation without his wife, having just quit his position at global investment firm 3G Capital. However, according to Bari Lurie, Clinton’s chief-of-staff, the hedge funder simply wanted to enjoy some downtime on the slopes.
“None of it was true,” Lurie told Vogue about the constant gossip. “But what put a strain on them was that the stories were being written because none of us were paying attention to it. It was an eye-opening lesson. Chelsea realized, ‘Maybe I need to get out there and demystify myself a little bit.'”
A reporter once made an inappropriate insinuation about Chelsea Clinton’s work on the campaign trail
In 2007, and certainly not for the last time, Chelsea Clinton started helping out in her mother’s bid to become president, appearing at dozens colleges to vouch for Hillary Clinton’s credentials. Of course, not everyone appreciated her efforts, and that included MSNBC host David Shuster.
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“Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” the reporter pondered live on air (via The Guardian) in 2008. Although he didn’t name Hillary by name, it was clear who Shuster was referring to. And the former first lady certainly didn’t stand for it.
“I’m a mom first, I’m a candidate second.” Hillary fumed in a discussion with an ABC affiliate (via The Guardian) amid threats to boycott an Ohio debate scheduled on NBC later that same month. “And, you know, I really am troubled by this pattern of behavior and comments that you hear.” The offending network quickly apologized for the offending comments and placed Shuster on suspension. “I used a phrase that was inappropriate,” he later admitted (via The New York Times). “All Americans should be proud of Chelsea Clinton.”
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Chelsea Clinton lost one of her close friends to the ‘dark side’
It seems hard to imagine now, but there was a time when Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump — two first daughters at complete opposite ends of the political spectrum — were firm friends. Of course, that all changed when the latter’s father Donald Trump rose to power.
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Chelsea had initially insisted the actions of their parents would never impact her and Ivanka’s relationship. But after Donald’s four controversial years in the White House, the daughter of 42nd president Bill Clinton appeared to realize this was a rather naïve statement. During a 2020 appearance on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” she told the Bravo host that she had “no interest in being friends with someone who is not only complicit but actively taking part in this administration’s everyday collision of cruelty and incompetence.”
On the same show two years later, Chelsea confirmed why she has no interest in being friends with Ivanka Trump. “She is not the person I called when I was curious about something for my kids or if I was debating a life decision, but we were definitely friends,” she recalled. “And then she went to the dark side.”
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Chelsea Clinton broke her toe in domestic accident
In May 2023, Chelsea Clinton was pictured enjoying a walk in New York City sporting a stylish blue summer outfit complete with a Balenciaga tote bag. But most of the attention went to the large walking boot she was wearing on her left foot.
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So had the former first daughter suddenly decided to start a new fashion trend? Had she accidentally gone out with mismatched shoes? Well, as it turns out, Chelsea had to resort to such footwear because she broke her toe in a mishap that would undoubtedly be relatable to any parent with young kids. As her rep revealed to People, the writer had suffered the injury “in a race to bath time with kids.”
It’s not known how long it took for Chelsea’s toe to heal. But she no doubt got some advice from her mom on how to deal with it. Six years earlier, Hillary Clinton explained on “The Graham Norton Show” that she’d broken her toe after falling backward on the stairs while running down them in heels.
The author was shamed for missing her daughter’s first day of school
In 2016, Chelsea Clinton was essentially put on the naughty step by the tabloid press when she made the grave mistake of (shock! horror!) failing to accompany her daughter on her first day of preschool. Yes, her fiercest critics came out in full force to shame the former first daughter for missing such an apparently important life milestone, despite the fact her husband Marc Mezvinsky – whose father has a history of legal problems – and their nanny had helped to usher in young Charlotte instead.
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Chelsea had been filling in for mother Hillary Clinton on the presidential campaign trail at the time after the latter contracted pneumonia. A perfectly valid reason, one would assume, but the writer was still accused of neglecting her duties by many tut-tutting columnists.
“Chelsea Clinton Misses Daughter’s First Day At School,” a disapproving Daily Mail declared in a headline which, following a backlash from working moms and anyone who’s realized we aren’t living in the Stone Age, was changed to “It Takes A Village.” “It only reinforced the sad notion that that no matter how successful you are, women will still be judged on their role as a mother,” noted Yahoo! Life’s Erica Rae Chong, echoing the general consensus.
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Chelsea Clinton often experiences mom guilt
Given how the press responded to the fact she missed her daughter’s first day at preschool, it’s little wonder Chelsea Clinton suffers from the common condition known as “mom guilt.” In fact, while promoting her 2020 children’s book, “She Persisted in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game,” the ex-first daughter argued it’s impossible to be a parent without it.
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Clinton recalled one particular example to People when she was struggling with the balancing act of helping her 4-year-old son Aidan with his Zoom-based science work during the COVID-19 pandemic and her own work on the same virtual platform. “Then I feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not doing either thing very well at the moment, but hopefully doing each as best as I can,'” she admitted about the constant rushing between each task.
“There’s so many moments like that,” she went on to add about the lockdown period. “Lots of guilt and navigation and just trying to do the best we can every day, and some days the best is going to be better than others.” That perhaps explains why we don’t see Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky’s three kids much.
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Chelsea Clinton was confronted by students at a vigil
In 2019, Chelsea Clinton attended a New York University vigil held for those who lost their lives in a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand. But her presence certainly wasn’t appreciated by everyone. In fact, the former first daughter was confronted by several protestors and was blamed for stoking the massacre.
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Their disdain appeared to stem from the tweet Clinton posted about Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat who three years earlier had become one of the first Muslim Congresswomen. “We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in antisemitism,” she wrote in response to Omar’s suggestion that American policy was being too strongly affected by the Israeli lobby.
“49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there,” the most vocal dissident told Clinton at the vigil (via Independent). “I’m so sorry that you feel that way,” came the response. The latter was defended by many, including Donald Trump Jr. who tweeted, “We should all be condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of hate. Chelsea should be praised for speaking up. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is part of the problem.”
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