Rudy Giuliani's Kids: 10 Facts About Andrew And Caroline Including Their Relationship With Their Dad
Before recently finding himself in the middle of legal troubles surrounding the 2020 presidential election, Rudolph "Rudy" Giuliani was also known as the former "America's mayor" due to the way he handled the attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001 when he was mayor. Now, the former member of Donald Trump's personal legal team has accumulated numerous legal troubles and was even booked at Georgia's Fulton County jail in August 2023 over allegations of election fraud – Giuliani's mugshot contradicted his pre-surrender demeanor.
In the backdrop of his complex and controversial career are his two adult children, Andrew and Caroline Giuliani. While Andrew has recently attempted to enter politics like his father, Caroline has chosen a different path for herself. Their relationship with their father has also been complicated over the years, and their relationship with their father has evolved in the midst of personal and public controversies.
Rudy Giuliani had two children with ex-wife Donna Hanover
Rudy Giuliani has been married three times, and also has a history of extramarital affairs. His first wife was Regina Peruggi, and she works in academia. However, their marriage ended after more than a decade, according to the U.S. Sun, with the couple deciding to divorce after finding out they were second cousins.
Giuliani then went on to marry broadcast journalist Donna Hanover in 1984, and the couple had two children together: Andrew and Caroline Giuliani. During their marriage, Hanover juggled her work hours on early morning shows with her job as mother and primary caregiver to their children. When Giuliani became the mayor of New York City, Hanover's own career had also been expanding into the acting world. Later, when the couple was having marital issues, Hanover told New York magazine, "People have learned how to do more than one thing at a time and found that it's a good way to live. Because whatever is going wrong, something is going right in your life if you have a lot of things going on — generally speaking."
Notably, after Hanover and Giuliani divorced in 2002, he was granted visitation rights with their children, but not joint custody. Hanover was also awarded $6.8 million as part of their divorce settlement, according to the New York Post, to be paid out over three years.
Andrew Giuliani was born in 1986
Andrew Harold Giuliani was the first child born to Rudy Giuliani and Donna Hanover. Rudy had no children with his first wife, Regina Peruggi. When Andrew was born in January 1986, Rudy was 41 years old. After Andrew was born, Rudy told the New York Times, "When it happens late, you sort of appreciate it a little more." On the day of the birth, Hanover was reportedly ready to go to work at her current job as a local news anchor, but her doctor talked her out of it.
Interestingly, while the public often perceives Rudy's recent legal troubles as his fall from grace, he was also embroiled in controversy at the time of Andrew's birth in 1986. At the time, Rudy was the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, where he was praised for successful prosecutions against drug dealers and crime organizations. However, as his career progressed, so did criticisms over his possible political ambitions. In January 1989, Rudy resigned from this position when Andrew was nearly three years old. "It's a big step for me personally and professionally to leave the U.S. Attorney's office,” he said at a press conference as reported by the New York Times.
Caroline Giuliani was born in 1989
Several months after Rudy Giuliani resigned as U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, his wife, Donna Hanover, gave birth to their daughter Caroline Rose Giuliani. Born in August 1989, Caroline was the couple's second and last child they had together. While not much information has been reported on Caroline's early life, it appears that much of the family's life in general revolved around Rudy's political career. When Caroline was just a few months old, Rudy ran for mayor of New York City but lost the election in November 1989. Interestingly, at the time, Rudy claimed he lost in part due to election fraud. "When I ran for mayor of New York City the first time some people voted eight or ten times," Rudy later told Spectrum News.
Again, not a whole lot about Caroline was known at this time. However, she was just a young child when her father Rudy ran for mayor yet again in 1993. This time, he won the race, and went on to serve as New York City's mayor from 1994 to 2001, according to Britannica.
Andrew and Caroline spent their early years in the New York mayor's residence
When Rudy Giuliani won the New York City mayoral election in 1993, his children were both young. Andrew Giuliani was nearly seven years old, while Caroline Giuliani was just four years old. Starting in 1994, the young children, Rudy, and their mother, Donna Hanover, took up residence at the Gracie Mansion. This is the official home of the New York City mayor, which also serves as a historic site of sorts. It was first built in 1799, and has since undergone periodic restoration by the Gracie Mansion Conservancy.
However, the home that Andrew and Caroline spent their formative years in was unfortunately thrust into the media spotlight during Rudy and Hanover's divorce. In May 2000, the couple announced their separation. CBS News reported Hanover as saying outside the Gracie Mansion, "Today's turn of events brings me great sadness. I had hoped that we could keep this marriage together." Up to this point, Hanover had taken great care in shielding her children from the public eye. On their residence at the Gracie Mansion, a friend of Hanover's, Ellen Eisenstat, told New York magazine in 2000, "It became all the more important to her to have an area of privacy about her family and about herself [...] She doesn't want her personal stuff out there."
Their relationship with their father became strained after the marriage ended
Unfortunately, the marital problems between Donna Hanover and Rudy Giuliani became front and center in the media due to Rudy's high-profile status as New York City mayor. The couple divorced in 2002, though they had already been separated before this point. While Hanover has hesitated to speak of this matter publicly, it was evident that a big part of the troubled marriage was attributed to Rudy's extramarital affairs.
While Andrew Giuliani hasn't said much publicly about his parents' split, the situation particularly had an impact on Caroline Giuliani. She later wrote about how her relationship with her father became strained after the divorce, just as she became a teenager. The two children were also absent from public events with Rudy, such as key events during his failed presidential campaign in 2007, according to the New York Times.
Before the divorce though, there was evidence that the children may not have seen their father as much as they should have. Hanover revealed in a 2000 interview with New York magazine, "They'll say good morning to him. But I'm the caregiver, and if I'm not there, then I'll have my babysitter."
Andrew Giuliani shifted from a career in golf to politics
As Rudy Giuliani and Donna Hanover moved on from their (very public) divorce, their children were also growing up and navigating their own lives. For his part, Andrew Giuliani took an interest in golf. He first played in high school before he went on to play for Duke University starting in 2005. However, his time playing for Duke wasn't smooth sailing. As Golf Digest reported in 2008, Andrew was removed from the team earlier in February of that year, when he was a senior at the school. While Andrew sued Duke, the school publicly outlined the reasons why he was kicked off the team, including both physical and verbal abuse. Despite this setback, Andrew tried to make an official career out of his golfing skills by attempting to go pro.
Year later, after Donald Trump became president, Andrew's career seemed to shift into politics, just like his father's. Rudy and Trump have reportedly been friends for decades, and, according to Axios, sources revealed that Trump was "genuinely fond" of Rudy's son. This likely helped Andrew first secure a volunteer position in Trump's presidential campaign, which later led to a job in the White House where he worked in the Office of Public Liaison. One of Andrew's key roles, according to The Atlantic, was to coordinate visits to the White House from various sports teams.
Andrew Giuliani tried to run for office in 2022
Andrew Giuliani worked in Donald Trump's White House thanks in part to the relationship between Donald Trump and Andrew's father, Rudy Giuliani. After Trump's exit from the White House in 2021, it was evident that Andrew was still interested in public service. This time, he turned his attention to running for public office himself, where he ran for the Republican nomination for New York Governor.
Ultimately, Andrew lost in the 2022 primaries against Lee Zeldin, where he ended up in second place, according to Politico. The publication also pointed out that some voters may have been turned off my Andrew's ties to Trump and Rudy. "Look, I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I worked four years for President Trump, and I'm certainly proud of my father and his many accomplishments," he said. "So whether that had a positive effect, whether it had a negative effect on voters, I'll let other people break that down."
Caroline Giuliani became a successful filmmaker instead
Instead of following in her father Rudy Giuliani's footsteps into the political arena, Caroline Giuliani's career path was much different than her brother Andrew's. In fact, she attended Harvard University, where she majored in film production. During her time at Harvard, according to her personal website, Caroline was involved in numerous film and theatre productions. From there, she launched a successful career in film, with just some of her production credits including television shows such as "Trophy Wife" and "666 Park Avenue." She's also a writer and director.
Not that she was expected to go into politics, but Caroline made her reasons clear for avoiding a political career in part of an op-ed she wrote for Vanity Fair in 2020. She wrote, "Around the age of 12, I would occasionally get into debates with my father, probably before I was emotionally equipped to handle such carnage. It was disheartening to feel how little power I had to change his mind, no matter how logical and above-my-pay-grade my arguments were. [...] The point is to illustrate one of the many reasons I have a fraught relationship with politics, like so many of us do."
Caroline Giuliani also got involved in politics, but in a different way than her brother
Andrew Giuliani has followed his father's steps as a Republican, and has also tried to dabble in a political career himself. Part of Andrew's rise to fame was in thanks part to name recognition from his father, Rudy Giuliani. While he came in second place in the Republican primary for the New York gubernatorial election in 2022, this likely isn't the last we will hear of Andrew in the political scene.
His sister, Caroline Giuliani, has also gotten involved in politics, but on the opposite side of the spectrum. While Caroline herself hasn't run for office, she has been a strong advocate for the Democratic Party, and has also publicly voiced her contempt for Rudy's beliefs and work. Before the 2020 presidential election, for example, Caroline wrote an essay for Vanity Fair titled, "Rudy Giuliani is My Father: Please, Everyone, Vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris." At the time, she wrote, "I hope you'll believe me when I say that another Trump term (a term, itself, that makes me cringe) will irrevocably harm the LGBTQ+ community, among many others." Also, in 2016, she publicly backed Hillary Clinton for president, and told Politico, "I love Hillary, I think she's by far the most qualified candidate that we've had in a long while. My dad knows. I was for Barack [Obama] in 2012. He knows and is fully comfortable with it and thinks I have a right to my opinion."
Today, the Giuliani family dynamics remain complicated
While Andrew Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani appear to be getting along better than in previous years, the status of Rudy's relationship with his daughter, Caroline Giuliani, isn't as clear. In her 2020 Vanity Fair essay, Caroline said of her relationship with her father, "We are multiverses apart, politically and otherwise. I've spent a lifetime forging an identity in the arts separate from my last name, so publicly declaring myself as a 'Giuliani' feels counterintuitive, but I've come to realize that none of us can afford to be silent right now." At the same time, Caroline has also conceded that her father respects her differing political views.
In 2022, during Andrew's race for the GOP gubernatorial nominee for New York, he also hinted at having disagreements with his father, though he hinted at the same mutual respect his sister Caroline has highlighted. "We're Italians," he told The Washington Post in April of that year. "It stays in the family." Two months later, Politico reported that during a primary debate, Andrew said, "I'm very proud of my name. People would say well, with a famous last name, it's easy to run in politics. I would tell you with a name like Andrew it's very difficult to be the leading candidate for governor in a Republican primary."
As both Caroline and Andrew continue to grow in their respective careers, and as their father wades through growing legal troubles, it will be interesting to see how their family dynamics evolve, too.