Karoline Leavitt & Her Husband Drop Subtle Sign The Age-Gap Backlash Is Getting To Them
From folks giving shoutouts to a parent to others honoring their partner in childrearing, plenty of celebs' Father's Day posts rolled in on social media this weekend. For Karoline Leavitt, though, her post raised a few eyebrows. It seems that while she felt the need to publicly acknowledge her hubby's first Father's Day since the birth of their son back in July, she didn't want to attract the typical backlash. Leavitt apparently didn't want to accidentally put her major age gap with her husband on blast yet again, so it's safe to say that the harsh words about her husband's age are definitely getting to her.
On June 15, 2025, Leavitt shared two photos of her decades-older husband Nicholas Riccio with their son Niko on her Instagram Stories. Across the first photo, she wrote "best dada in the" with an earth emoji followed by a blue heart. "The rock of our little family. showing Niko the way," the Trump staffer captioned the second pic. Typically, this would seem like a thoughtful and normal tribute to your partner for Father's Day.
@karolineleavitt/Instagram
But, in Leavitt's case, it raised a few red flags, since she was careful to share the tribute only on her stories, rather than the main grid itself. The White House press secretary is heavily active on Instagram, and she even shared a post for Mother's Day just last month. So, it seems that Leavitt wanted her Father's Day post to get a bit less attention than some of her others, and we think we can probably guess why.
Karoline Leavitt may have tried to avoid receiving public comments about her husband
The youngest White House press secretary in U.S. history certainly gets more than her fair share of hate online, and a lot of it has to do with her age. Recently, Karoline Leavitt's true age ignited a brutal internet war that had people ripping her to shreds. Many folks believed that the 27-year-old was quite a bit older than she actually is. And, some of this may be a result of her age gap with her 59-year-old hubby. The Trump staffer seems to keep posting Nicholas Riccio on social media to a minimum. This is likely because Leavitt's occasional family snaps have consistently had people saying the same awkward things about her husband: He looks like her dad or calling him "grandpa" when he's posing with his son.
Unlike Instagram grids, stories vanish from the internet in 24 hours and don't include a public comments section. So, the White House staffer kept the potential for backlash about the couple's age gap controlled by sharing the photos in this way. This could have been a sign of how Leavitt intends to share her personal life with the world moving forward, or maybe she was giving Riccio the Father's Day gift of less potential for public shaming. Either way, it certainly seems like all the swirling age gap talk is bothering the couple.