First Lady Jill Biden tries “to be a support for Joe,” she told Harper’s Bazaar magazine.
“I don’t know how many people are saying to him, ‘That was great. That was brilliant.’ I try to be that person for him,” she told the magazine. “Some days, I see Joe and I’m just like, ‘I don’t know how you’re doing it.’ It’s the pandemic and then it’s the war and then it’s the economy and then it’s the gas prices. You feel like you’re being slammed.”
Yet, Jill Biden sometimes finds herself in an argument typical of a 45-year marriage. During those arguments, she texts her grievances to President Biden, rather than argue in front of the secret service.
First Lady Biden refers to this habit as “fexting” — presumably a portmanteau of “fight” and “texting.” The Biden family first started “fexting” during Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president, according to the magazine
After she recently texted him in a fit of pique, he told her, “‘You realize that’s going to go down in history. There will be a record of that,’” she said. Presidential communications are preserved for the historical record.
She told her interviewer, “I won’t tell you what I called him that time.”
The first lady appears on the cover of the publication’s June-July issue, available on newsstands June 7.
First Lady Biden faced criticism for wearing very expensive earrings in a photoshoot for a fashion magazine… during a national shortage of baby formula.
Harper’s Bazaar said it’s the first time in its 155-year history that a U.S. first lady has been so prominently featured. For this reason, one Twitter user described the magazine as bizarre, in a play on the word “bazaar.”
Former First Lady Melania Trump seems to have appeared on a European issue of Bazaar, but not its American issue.
Take a look —
Dr. Jill Biden has faced it all—yet she maintains the grace and conviction that has guided her all her life.
For our June/July issue, @mattiekahn talks with @FLOTUS about how she balances it all, while consistently showing up for the people who need her.https://t.co/FWY3rPYVjt pic.twitter.com/1XPY00ogYm
— Harper’s BAZAAR (@harpersbazaarus) May 31, 2022
Out-of-stock rates for baby formula spiked to 70% nationwide last week, but here's First Lady Jill Biden posing for Harper's Bazaar in $8,800 earrings. pic.twitter.com/aR5KFpQnru
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) May 31, 2022
https://twitter.com/dtalley2000/status/1424760615059398657
In the interview, First Lady Biden also opened up about her previous marriage.
She was 18 when she married her first husband. But by her mid-20s, she was divorced, alone and on her own for the first time in her life. The breakup dealt her an emotional blow as she had idolized her parents’ union and thought she’d have a marriage as long-lasting as theirs.
She finished college and became a teacher.
“I knew I would never, ever put myself in that position again, where I didn’t feel like I had the finances to be on my own, that I had to get the money through a divorce settlement,” she said.
“I drummed that into (my daughter), Ashley, ‘Be independent, be independent.’ And my granddaughters,” she said. “You have to be able to stand on your own two feet.”
Jill Biden met then-Sen. Joe Biden in 1975. They were married two years later, after Joe Biden had reportedly proposed five times.
She kept teaching throughout his rise in national politics, eventually becoming the only first lady to hold a paying job outside the White House.
The first lady has since become known for her education advocacy. She has also made a point to visit military families, as the mother of an Iraq War veteran.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.