The Most Scandalous Affair Rumors About U.S Presidents And First Ladies

When we elect leaders to represent us, most people probably expect that those leaders will conduct themselves morally. At this point, though — after centuries of presidential scandals and misbehavior — it's probably more logical to expect that those leaders will be doing things behind closed doors that we can't even imagine. The country loves a presidential affair rumor, the suggestion that someone we looked up to has behaved in a way that would make most people blush.

For example, Bill Clinton had a scandalous incident years before his Monica Lewinsky affair, but people were still shocked when that whole story broke in the public. Writer Peggy Noonan attended a National Prayer Breakfast led by the then-president, and she had to remind herself just who was speaking. "I thought: He's talking to us as if he is a moral leader and we are the nice people being led. He's providing moral instruction to a room full of ministers. Then I thought: And this is Bill Clinton!" she later said (via First Things). Presidents and first ladies have been accused of everything from emotional affairs to having been entrapped by spies, with a few same-sex relationships thrown into the mix. These are the most scandalous affair rumors about U.S. presidents and first ladies.

When Marilyn Monroe stepped out on stage to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy — in a dress so form-fitting that fashion historians saw red when Kim Kardashian later wore it to the Met Gala — a million affair rumors were born. People were astounded by the flagrantly-flirtatious way that the movie star wished the politician well; was there any way that they weren't sleeping together, based on the way they looked at each other?

The rumors, of course, reached JFK's wife Jackie Kennedy, who found herself unable to shake the thought that her husband might be stepping out on her with one of the most famous blonde bombshells in the world. That paranoia was only heightened when Jackie received a phone call from someone claiming to be the "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" star, asking to speak with the president. "She later told family members that there was a haunting quality to Marilyn's voice that really stuck with her," Kennedy family biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli told Fox News Digital. "And it's not like they even had any kind of deep conversation ... But it was 10 years of wondering, was it really Marilyn Monroe? And that buzz stayed with the family." Whatever happened between Monroe and JFK then led to rumors that she'd also been involved with Robert F. Kennedy, his brother. Hairdresser Sydney Guilaroff even wrote in his memoir that RFK had been one of the last people to see Monroe alive (via People).

As the first family, Barack and Michelle Obama seemed to have one of the most enviably loved-up marriages in all of politics. The president and first lady's love story was so adorable, in fact, that a 2016 movie called "Southside With You" fictionalized the night of their first date. "I was just very taken by them as a couple," director Richard Tanne told The Hollywood Reporter. "I was really struck by their love and the connection they had." He was far from alone.

Years after the Obamas left the White House, however, their marriage was plagued by unlikely rumors that the president had made a new lady-friend: Jennifer Aniston. InTouch reported on a rumor that Barack had been palling around with the star of "The Morning Show" behind his wife's back, and the rumors caught fire online so quickly that Aniston herself addressed them on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." She laughed, "That is absolutely untrue ... I've met him once! I know Michelle more than him!" Kimmel asked her to clarify, and she insisted that, no, she's not having an affair with Michelle either.

Speaking with Vanity Fair a few months after the story took the internet by storm, Aniston said she had dinner with Michelle after the scandal, and neither of them even mentioned the rumors. Aniston explained, "I don't think anyone really pays attention to reports like that if you're the subject of them." That may be true for her, but for the rest of us, there are plenty of other rumors about Aniston that are hard to ignore.

We may think of presidential infidelity as a modern problem, given all of the attention Bill Clinton received for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, but presidents have been immoral for ... well, almost as long as there have been presidents. It is still a stain on our country's history that, like many politicians of his time, Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, owned slaves. Furthermore, it seems that Jefferson didn't just own slaves; he abused them, too. 

Jefferson apparently took a particular liking to Sally Hemings, one of the slaves whom he met in Paris and was later kept at his home in Monticello. We should be clear that this would have been rape, as there is no such thing as consent under slavery. People have questioned their relationship for centuries, with many suggesting that Jefferson fathered several of Hemings' children. The official website of his Monticello foundation even acknowledges this, writing, "The Jefferson-Hemings story was sustained through the 19th century by Northern abolitionists, British critics of American democracy, and others. Its vitality among the American population at large was recorded by European travelers of the time." Nowadays, genetic testing has proven that Jefferson does indeed have descendants by way of Hemings. While many of the affairs on this list seem to have been consensual (or even nonexistent), Jefferson's abuse of Hemings stands as one of the most immoral scandals in American presidential history.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Donald Trump is a historic president for a number of reasons, not least of which is that he's the only president to have convicted of dozens of felonies for his conduct. In 2024, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts related to a hush-money payment that he'd given an adult film star named Stormy Daniels, illegally falsifying his business records by classifying it as a payment to his lawyer rather than something related to his political campaign.

Daniels had been out to expose Trump's philandering to the public, including in a book called "Full Disclosure." Daniels said they'd slept together after a golf tournament and that she had regretted it for years. She even detailed some embarrassing specifics of his anatomy that he likely would rather have kept private, infamously comparing its appearance to a "toadstool." Each time Trump was in the news, Daniels reminded herself of what had happened. "'I had sex with that,' I'd say to myself," she wrote (via The Guardian). "Eech." She also said, "It may have been the least impressive sex I'd ever had." For the record, Trump himself has denied that anything happened between them.

Donald Trump's apparent affair with Stormy Daniels is one of the most scandalous moments in presidential history, but Melania Trump hasn't been able to escape affair rumors of her own. Melania had a rumored fling with Hank Siemers, a security guard who worked at Trump Tower in New York City, where the couple lived before moving to Washington, D.C. The rumors broke wide in 2017 when a novelist named Monica Byrne tweeted and deleted a thread of allegations. Claiming the relationship was spoken about in New York society circles, Byrne wrote that even the president was aware of his wife stepping out with Siemers. "They had an agreement (written, I think) that if [Donald Trump] lost the election, they'd get divorced. But then he won," Byrne claimed in a now-deleted X post (via Perez Hilton). She even tweeted the allegations directly to the president himself, writing, "We're all wondering if your wife @MelaniaTrump is having an affair with the head of security at Tiffanys or nah?"

Although no proof of the affair has ever emerged, a former producer for "The Apprentice" added his support on X, insisting that Melania didn't live with her husband. "She lived with her boyfriend," he wrote. "We had to book the [transportation] on 'Apprentice' Finales and her pick-up was NOT on 5th Ave."

In Cole Escola's Tony-winning play "Oh, Mary!" the writer-performer played Mary Todd Lincoln as a woman coming apart at the seams. In Escola's vision of history, Mary is an alcoholic who's well aware of rumors that her husband is a closeted gay man, thank you very much. "I like to say, very glibly, that I did no research for this play about Mary Todd Lincoln," Escola joked to W Magazine as their work picked up accolade after accolade.

There may, however, be a kernel of truth to the play. Historians have long wondered whether Honest Abe might have had relationships with not just Mary but men. It seems indisputably true that Abraham lived with a man named Joshua Speed for many years, and the letters they wrote each other sure seem suggestive of more than just roommateship. When Speed married a woman, Lincoln wrote him, "I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now; you will be so exclusively concerned for one another, that I shall be forgotten entirely." He signed that letter, "Yours Forever," which was something he did not write even in letters to his wife.

In 2024, a documentary called "Lover of Men" laid out the long history of academic scholarship that does, indeed, suggest that Abraham was attracted to men. "We are not trying to damage or besmirch or do anything harmful to Lincoln's reputation — quite the opposite," Dr. Thomas Balcerski told Vanity Fair. "We are broadening."

Abraham Lincoln isn't the only historical figure rumored to have been involved with someone of the same sex. Eleanor Roosevelt — wife of four-term president Franklin Delano Roosevelt — has long been the subject of rumors that she had an affair with a female journalist. Lorena Hickock was a trailblazing reporter who broke barriers when she was the first woman to have a byline on the front page of The New York Times ... and she also seems to have been a very close confidante to the first lady.

In a roundup of suggestive letter excerpts published by Autostraddle, it becomes clear that the whispered-about nature of their close friendship may have been more than just rumor. In 1933, Eleanor wrote, "Hick darling, Oh! how good it was to hear your voice, it was so inadequate to try and tell you what it meant, Jimmy was near and I couldn't say 'je t'aime et je t'adore' as I longed to do but always remember I am saying it and that I go to sleep thinking of you and repeating our little saying." The reporter and the first lady's "little saying" translates to "I love you and I adore you." In 1940, Hickcock wrote to Eleanor, "Thanks again, you dear, for all the sweet things you think of and do. And I love you more than I love anyone else in the world except Prinz." We should note, for the record, that Prinz was the reporter's dog.

Nancy Reagan was a first lady who broke all the fashion rules, but she's also the subject of scandalous rumors that suggest she broke marital rules as well. In addition to persistent internet-amplified insinuations that former actor Ronald Reagan's wife was infamous in Hollywood circles for her skill at a particular sexual act, Nancy may also have had an affair with Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra.

In 1991, author Kitty Kelley released "Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography," which contained a detailed account of the first lady's love of the crooner. They apparently began their affair in 1970, when Ronald was the governor of California, and Kelley alleged that their affair continued all the way to Washington. What's more, she believes that Sinatra's love of Ronald's wife might have led to him having an inordinate influence over the government; after all, Sinatra is known to have had plenty of shady connections to the mob. Surprisingly, Kelley asserted that their affair was well-known among staff. "When the first lady was with Frank Sinatra, she was not to be disturbed," Kelley wrote in the biography (via The Roanoke Times). "For anything. And that included a call from the president himself."

Before the internet, it might have been easier for politicians to get away with affairs while in office. After all, there were no camera phones to catch people on illicit dates, and there was no gossip-blog infrastructure with which people could spread unverified rumors. Warren G. Harding was lucky that he was the 29th president, inaugurated in 1921; there was no Perez Hilton back then who could have exposed what seems to have been a number of affairs.

In 2014, the Library of Congress released a batch of letters written by Harding to Carrie Fulton Phillips, with whom he apparently had a years-long affair. Harding allegedly called his own anatomy "Jerry" and hers "Mrs. Pouterson." Cringe. "I love you more than all the world and have no hope of reward on earth or hereafter, so precious as that in your dear arms, in your thrilling lips, in your matchless breasts, in your incomparable embrace," he wrote to her in 1910 (via The New York Times). When their affair ended, she purportedly blackmailed him, threatening to release those embarrassing letters to the public if he didn't pay her for her silence. In response, Harding offered to pay her $5,000 a year. "It is not big, but it will add to your comfort and make you independent to a reasonable degree," he said, begging, "Don't make me fool the public or my friends."

For the most part, the presidents and first ladies who have engaged in illicit affairs may be behaving in a way the public wouldn't approve of, but those affairs rarely endanger the national security of the United States. Gerald Ford, who is on the surprisingly-short list of presidents who have lost re-election, was the subject of scandalous rumors that he had an affair with an East German spy. Yikes.

Former Washington fixer Robert "Bobby" Baker claimed in an exposé published by Politico that Ford — while in Congress — had hooked up with a woman named Ellen Rometsch. She was a notorious East German double agent, and Baker insisted that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover obtained proof that Ford had fallen under her spell. "He had this tape where Jerry Ford was having oral sex with Ellen Rometsch. You know, his wife had a serious drug problem back then. Hoover blackmailed Ford to tell him what they were doing," Baker revealed.

There were allegations that Rometsch had also slept with John F. Kennedy, and that RFK deported her. Baker even suggested that Ford only collaborated with the Warren Commission investigation into JFK's assassination because of what Hoover knew about Ford and JFK's affairs with Rometsch. David Horrocks, former chief archivist of the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum, told Politico that he wasn't so sure. "It seems so out of character for the Ford that I knew," he said. "I just find it hard to believe."