Tragic Details About Chelsea Clinton's Life As A Former First Daughter

Chelsea Clinton lives a lavish and happy life now as an author and chair of her family's Clinton Foundation, wife to banker Marc Mezvinsky, and mom of three growing children. It's quite a contrast from her days in the White House as the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and then-first lady Hillary Clinton. True, she wanted for nothing financially (though she didn't have the kind of =""

Yet, as the saying goes, living well is the best revenge. Avoiding the bitterness and regret others might have experienced, Chelsea has matured into a compassionate woman who switched to a career in public service after trying the financial world. "I've tried really hard to care about things that were very different from my parents," she once explained to The Telegraph (via

="" Business Insider). "I was curious if I could care about [money] on some fundamental level, and I couldn't." While there may have been aspects of her life as first daughter that she wishes she could have changed, the experience helped shape who she is today.

Chelsea Clinton has always known what it's like to be the daughter of a prominent father — and the pitfalls that go along with it. Bill Clinton was already the governor of Arkansas when she was born, and even in her early years, Chelsea was subjected to the hatred of those who disagreed with the governor's policies. At school, she endured even more teasing and harassment. In the YouTube clip, she recalled to Variety, "In second grade, a couple of sixth-graders put me in a locker and closed the door because they wanted to see if the state troopers would come. And they thought that was really funny." Other students came to her rescue, but not before Chelsea made a brave choice not to react to the bullies. "I thought, 'Oh, gosh, I can either cry' — which is was what I was doing in the locker — 'or I can get up and kind of, like, screw them with a smile.'"

That resilience has served Chelsea well over the years. "To retaliate with crass language or insult someone personally — I just don't think I'm built that way," she explained to The Guardian. Rather, she addresses the ugliness with sly humor, as she did to Donald Trump Jr. on X (formerly Twitter) in August 2024. The controversial first son reposted a New York Post article suggesting Chelsea would ask Kamala Harris for an ambassadorship if she won the election. Chelsea replied, "Must be the same people who said I would run for Congress, get married years before I actually did, and have an alien sibling." In an ironic twist of fate, Don Jr.'s own ex-fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was appointed ambassador to Greece by the newly re-elected president.

Adolescence is hard enough without having to have the world watching you go through it. Chelsea Clinton was only 12 — that notoriously awkward age —when her dad was elected president for the first time. Sadly, some in the media felt emboldened to make fun of her looks. In November 1992, Rush Limbaugh joked on his TV show about putting "a cute kid in the White House" (via MediaMatters) while showing a photo of Millie, George H.W. Bush's dog. Days later, Limbaugh offered a mock apology, saying, "I don't need to get laughs by commenting on people's looks, especially a young child who's done nothing wrong. I mean, she can't control the way she looks." Then he went for the cheap shot once again by showing a photo of Chelsea with a "sour" expression on her face.

"Saturday Night Live" also got pushback for its repeated treatment of Chelsea during her years as first daughter. Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey, as "Wayne's World"'s Wayne and Garth, commented that "adolescence has been thus far unkind" to her (per Yahoo!). The outraged response prompted apologies from both Meyers and producer Lorne Michaels. Similarly, Julia Sweeney was blasted for playing Chelsea with a frizzy wig and braces in one sketch, a moment she now regrets. Speaking on the "Fly on the Wall" podcast (via People), Sweeney explained, "I wasn't trying to play her unattractive," but viewers felt differently — and so did Hillary Clinton, who wrote a protest letter to Michaels. "She was right, that was wrong," said Sweeney, who now believes children should be off-limits for parodies altogether.

During Bill Clinton's second term in office, his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, entered her freshman year at Stanford University. The family tried to stay as low-key as possible on orientation day, but they stood out despite the huge campus. A crowd cheered and welcomed Chelsea as she and her family strolled the grounds. While the other students were left to carve out college life on their own, Chelsea was constantly guarded by Secret Service agents, who even had their own room in her dorm. One fellow underclassman recalled on Quora that the agents even led a dorm session explaining their jobs and the training they got. "I had one funny interaction with one of them," he recalled. "He said they liked popcorn but needed a microwave to make it. I said they could use mine and told him to come find me if he needed to get into my room to use it. His reply: 'Don't worry, we can get in.'" 

Despite the lack of total anonymity, Chelsea thrived at school and went on to earn several postgraduate degrees. Still, she firmly believes that every first child needs as much privacy as possible — even if she doesn't personally approve of their family politics. When Barron Trump went off to NYU, some declared him "fair game" for media coverage. During an appearance on "The View" (via People), Chelsea addressed the issue. "I think he's a private citizen," she said. "I feel so strongly that if you are a private citizen, you have an unimpeachable right to privacy and I think the media should leave him alone."

As the late Queen Elizabeth might have put it, 1998 was an "annus horribilis" for the Clinton family. The president found himself entangled in lawsuits and allegations of sexual harassment, which led to an impeachment hearing. It ended in an acquittal, but not before Clinton admitted he'd had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He was hardly the first president to cheat either in or out of office, but it was the first time a dalliance nearly cost a POTUS his office. The scandal made headlines for months and set tongues wagging over the Clintons' marriage. Every frown of Hillary's and every hint of distance between the two was scrutinized in detail. 

Chelsea Clinton had been trained early on by her parents to stand tough in the face of criticism about her father. But this personal betrayal was something that went far beyond TV snarking or reporters questioning his foreign policy. Despite being at school across the country, she was still deeply affected by the drama. According to one biography, she reportedly went to the campus hospital numerous times with severe stomach pain brought on by the stress. Some children might have broken all ties with a cheating parent or at least maintained a chilly distance; no one would have faulted Chelsea if she'd done the same. Yet she opted to forgive her father (as did Hillary), and the senior Clintons remain close to their daughter and grandchildren to this day.