The photograph that ended Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign was taken on a yacht named Monkey Business. Hart was the Democratic frontrunner. Within days of that image circulating, he was gone – forced to drop his candidacy over an affair he had told reporters to prove if they could. The story of politicians mistresses affairs is as old as politics itself, but what makes it endlessly compelling is not the scandal. It’s the spectacular collision of public image and private reality, the gap between what was promised and what actually happened behind closed doors.
That gap has toppled careers, rewritten history, and occasionally shaped entire nations. The same men who drafted legislation, commanded armies, and delivered speeches about family values were, in many cases, conducting parallel lives of remarkable complexity. Some affairs lasted decades. Some produced children who weren’t publicly acknowledged for generations. One case took DNA testing to confirm nearly a century later. These are not rumors. Most are on the record, confirmed by testimony, documents, memoirs, or genetics.
What follows is a look at thirty of the most documented cases, drawn from American and world political history, spanning the 19th century to the present day. The facts are often stranger than anything a screenwriter would risk.
1. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky
The Clinton-Lewinsky affair is arguably the biggest relationship scandal in U.S. political history. The House impeached Clinton over allegations that he lied under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky. She was a 22-year-old White House intern when the relationship began. Clinton and Lewinsky had reportedly been seeing each other from 1995 to 1997.
After denying the affair and saying the now-iconic line, “I did not have relations with that woman,” Clinton later confessed after evidence, acquired by Lewinsky’s former friend Linda Tripp, was brought to light. The scandal consumed his second term, generated a 453-page independent counsel report, and set the template for every political scandal that followed. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate and served out his presidency.
2. John F. Kennedy and Judith Exner
Judith Exner was the daughter of a wealthy architect who became Kennedy’s mistress while he was still a senator in 1960. She reportedly engaged in an affair with Kennedy from 1960 until 1962, by which time he was in the White House. Her shocking revelations first came to light in 1975 during a Select Committee hearing, though she furnished greater detail in her 1977 memoir.
What made the affair particularly dangerous was the company she kept. She claimed that she had acted as a liaison between Kennedy and the Mafia’s Sam Giancana, who she said the presidential hopeful was keen to contact to help him win the election. Years later, Exner added to her story, stating that she helped arrange a meeting between the two men to discuss a potential Mafia hit on Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Her earlier accounts of her affair with Kennedy were supported by FBI reports, Secret Service and White House phone logs, and staff documentation.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lucy Mercer
In 1914, Lucy Mercer became social secretary to Eleanor Roosevelt, helping Eleanor with the social obligations associated with her position as spouse of the assistant secretary of the Navy. While working for Eleanor, Lucy met Franklin and the two began a romantic relationship.
Eleanor learned of the affair in 1918 when she found a package of Lucy’s letters in FDR’s luggage. Despite the social stigma then attached to divorce, the couple considered it but eventually decided to reconcile because of family and financial considerations, including FDR’s political career, which a divorce would have ended. The reconciliation came with a condition: Franklin promised to end all contact with Mercer. While FDR told his wife Eleanor that he ended the affair in 1918, Lucy Mercer was by his side on the day he died. Mercer’s husband had died in 1944, and Franklin began seeing her again through meetings arranged by his daughter Anna.
4. Warren G. Harding and Nan Britton
Nan Britton, who was 31 years Harding’s junior, had met him in his home state of Ohio when she was a teenager and he was running for U.S. Senate. Following President Harding’s sudden death in August 1923, Britton wrote what is considered to be the first kiss-and-tell book. In The President’s Daughter, published in 1927, she told of her life as Harding’s mistress throughout his presidency and named him as the father of her daughter, Elizabeth Ann. One famous passage told of their having relations in a closet near the President’s office in the White House.
Harding’s relatives disputed these claims for decades. Britton’s claim was open to question during her lifetime, but in 2015, Harding’s paternity was finally confirmed by DNA testing. According to a 2015 NBC News report, genetic analysis by AncestryDNA confirmed that Harding had fathered a child with Britton, with a family connection described as “definitive” by an AncestryDNA spokesman.
5. Warren G. Harding and Carrie Phillips
Harding’s other major affair was with Carrie Phillips, and this one had a price tag. Harding had a 15-year affair with Carrie Phillips, the wife of a close friend, who did not find out about the affair until after it was over. But Harding’s wife, Florence, was aware of it. Harding broke off the relationship after he was elected to the White House in 1920.
Once Harding was nominated for president by the Republican party, Phillips threatened to come forward if she wasn’t paid for her silence. With the fear of an immense scandal prior to the election, the Republican National Committee paid her $50,000 – an enormous amount at the time – and shipped her and her family off to Japan. The party effectively bought its way out of the story.
6. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Kay Summersby
Eisenhower had an affair with his personal driver Kay Summersby, who later wrote a tell-all book about it called Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower. While there have been some questions about whether or not they had intimate relations, many historians believe they were in love. Summersby was a model-turned-aide to Eisenhower, and their relationship allegedly started in 1942. Their affair is said to have ended in 1945.
To divorce and remarry, Eisenhower needed the permission of his commanding officer, General George C. Marshall. Marshall refused, and he threatened to destroy Eisenhower’s military career if he did not drop the matter. As a result, Eisenhower abandoned the idea of a divorce and broke off the relationship with Summersby. Most historians agree, based on letters and first-hand accounts, that they certainly had romantic feelings for each other.
7. Lyndon B. Johnson and Alice Glass
LBJ made little effort to conceal his extramarital activities. Johnson engaged in numerous affairs throughout his marriage to Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson. The most famous of these was the president’s relationship with socialite Alice Glass, who was notable for her political savvy. According to LBJ biographer Robert Caro, she eventually broke up with him because of her opposition to the Vietnam War. The relationship had apparently spanned multiple decades of Johnson’s political rise.
Johnson was openly proud of his conquests. Lyndon Johnson was infamous in Texas for his extramarital activities, where he actually belittled Kennedy’s exploits. “I have had more women by accident than he has had on purpose,” Johnson reportedly boasted.
8. Gary Hart and Donna Rice
Former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart’s 1988 bid for the White House was derailed when, in 1987, he became caught up in a scandal amid reports he’d had an extramarital affair with a model named Donna Rice. The scandal cost Hart a shot at the Democratic presidential nomination.
His campaign was dogged with rumors about his infidelity almost as soon as it began, prompting Hart to tell the New York Times, “If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead.” Several newspapers did just that, finding among other things a photo of Hart with model Donna Rice on a yacht named Monkey Business. Hart did not last much longer in the election. He had been the clear Democratic frontrunner before the story broke. It remains one of the most dramatic self-inflicted political implosions in American history.
9. John Edwards and Rielle Hunter
Rielle Hunter wrote a tell-all book revealing the intimate details of her affair with former senator and then-presidential candidate John Edwards. After the two met in a hotel lobby in February 2006, Hunter was hired as the campaign’s videographer, and their affair became one of the biggest political scandals of the era.
Edwards denied paternity of their daughter, Frances Quinn, born in 2008, until 2010. Edwards was acquitted on charges of accepting illegal campaign contributions from a supporter to cover up the affair. The cover-up operation had involved Edwards’s aide Andrew Young initially claiming to be the child’s father – a claim that lasted long enough to outlive the campaign but not the courts.
10. Newt Gingrich and Callista Bisek
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group. The hypocrisy was breathtaking by any measure: the man overseeing Clinton’s impeachment proceedings was simultaneously conducting his own.
Marianne Gingrich, Newt’s second wife, later said that the then-presidential candidate wanted an “open marriage” and sought to keep her as his wife while keeping his current wife Callista Bisek as a mistress. Gingrich eventually divorced Marianne, married Callista, and later served as U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. She became the third Mrs. Gingrich in 2000.
11. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mildred Baena
While still in office as Governor of California, news emerged that Schwarzenegger had fathered a son with his housekeeper, Mildred Baena. The affair had been concealed for over a decade. Schwarzenegger said he only told his wife, Maria Shriver, about the child after leaving office. The admission appeared to prompt Shriver to leave the couple’s home before they officially announced their separation. Shriver filed divorce papers on July 1, 2011.
Baena had worked in the Schwarzenegger household for 20 years. The son born from the relationship was raised alongside the couple’s legitimate children, with the secret apparently kept from everyone, including Shriver, for the entirety of his tenure as governor.
12. Mark Sanford and María Belén Chapur
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford made national headlines in June 2009 after mysteriously disappearing for five days. His office gave a lie, saying he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was, in fact, visiting his mistress in Argentina.
The affair with Argentine journalist María Belén Chapur had been ongoing. Sanford delivered a tearful press conference in which he called Chapur his “soul mate,” and subsequently survived a Republican impeachment inquiry. He went on to run for and win a congressional seat. In a remarkable coda, he and Chapur became engaged in 2012, though they later ended the relationship.
13. Eliot Spitzer and Ashley Dupré
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace in March 2008 after NPR reported he had been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel, using the code name “Client 9.” The prostitute, later identified as Ashley Dupré, was part of a ring called Emperors Club VIP.
The irony was almost too neat: Spitzer had built his political career as New York Attorney General prosecuting prostitution rings and financial crimes. He had been considered a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. He resigned two days after the story broke.
14. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
The affair between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is one of the oldest and most historically significant relationships on this list. Hemings was an enslaved woman at Monticello and the half-sister of Jefferson’s late wife Martha. For more than a century, Jefferson’s descendants denied the relationship.
DNA testing confirmed that Thomas Jefferson had an intimate relationship with his enslaved woman Sally Hemings. Hemings is believed to have had six children with Jefferson. The relationship began when Jefferson was serving as U.S. Minister to France and Hemings accompanied him there as a 16-year-old. It is an uncomfortable entry on any list of “affairs” because the profound power imbalance and the institution of slavery complicate any simple narrative of romance.
15. David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell
CIA Director and former four-star General David Petraeus resigned in November 2012 after the FBI discovered he had been having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and had shared classified information with her. The investigation had begun when Broadwell sent threatening emails to another woman she saw as a rival for Petraeus’s attention.
Broadwell had embedded with Petraeus in Afghanistan while writing his authorized biography, All In. According to the Department of Justice, Petraeus pleaded guilty in April 2015 to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials. He was fined $100,000 and sentenced to two years of probation, avoiding prison time despite passing highly sensitive notebooks to Broadwell.
16. Anthony Weiner and Sydney Leathers
Few political falls were as slow-motion and self-inflicted as Anthony Weiner’s. The New York congressman was caught in 2011 sending explicit photos of himself to women on Twitter, initially claiming his account had been hacked before eventually admitting the truth and resigning from Congress.
He ran for New York City mayor in 2013, leading in polls until a second round of explicit messages surfaced, this time involving 22-year-old Sydney Leathers. A third scandal in 2016 contributed to a federal investigation into his communications with a 15-year-old girl, for which he was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. The story became a documentary, a cautionary tale, and eventually a recurring punchline.
17. John Profumo and Christine Keeler
The Profumo Affair in Britain remains one of the most consequential political scandals of the 20th century. In 1963, the resignation of John Profumo rocked the British government as his affair with Christine Keeler was exposed. In the aftermath, Lord Denning was tasked with investigating whether any breaches of national security had been caused by Profumo’s relationship with Keeler.
The security concern was real: Keeler was simultaneously involved with Soviet naval attaché Yevgeni Ivanov. Profumo lied to the House of Commons, denying any “impropriety” with Keeler, and was forced to resign when the truth emerged. The scandal contributed to the fall of Harold Macmillan’s government. Profumo spent the rest of his long life doing charity work in the East End of London, widely considered one of the more graceful acts of political penance.
18. François Mitterrand and Anne Pingeot
French President François Mitterrand maintained a parallel family for decades, an arrangement that was an open secret in French political circles but kept from the French public. He had a daughter, Mazarine, with his mistress Anne Pingeot, and the relationship lasted some 30 years.
When Mitterrand died in 1996, Mazarine and her mother stood publicly at the graveside alongside Mitterrand’s official family. It was the first time most French people had seen her. The French press, operating under a strong tradition of privacy in matters of public figures’ personal lives, had known about Pingeot and Mazarine for years and published nothing.
19. Silvio Berlusconi and Ruby Rubacuori
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faced criminal charges in 2012 related to his relationship with Karima El Mahroug, a Moroccan-born dancer who performed under the name Ruby Rubacuori (Ruby the Heartstealer). Berlusconi was accused of paying for relations with a 17-year-old girl and using his influence to cover it up.
Berlusconi was initially convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, a verdict later overturned on appeal when the court found insufficient evidence of the charges. The case became a cultural flashpoint in Italy, with protests both against Berlusconi and, notably, in his defense, as he retained significant political support throughout the proceedings.
20. Jacques Chirac and Various Mistresses
French President Jacques Chirac was famously described by his own wife, Bernadette, as having a “weakness for women.” According to multiple French biographies and accounts, Chirac maintained numerous affairs throughout his decades in politics, from his time as Mayor of Paris through his two presidential terms.
Bernadette Chirac addressed the subject with remarkable candor in her 2001 memoir, acknowledging that her husband’s infidelities had been a persistent feature of their marriage. The French approach to these matters differs markedly from the American one: Chirac’s reputation was largely unaffected by the revelations, and he remained a popular figure.
21. Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Nafissatou Diallo
IMF Managing Director and French presidential frontrunner Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s career ended abruptly in May 2011 when Nafissatou Diallo, a hotel housekeeper in New York, accused him of assault at the Sofitel hotel. He was arrested on the tarmac at JFK Airport as he was boarding a flight to Paris.
The criminal charges were ultimately dropped after prosecutors expressed doubts about Diallo’s credibility in other matters, but the civil suit was settled out of court. Strauss-Kahn’s political career was finished. In France, it later emerged that he had been involved in a network tied to prostitution rings, for which he was tried and eventually acquitted in 2015. His wife, journalist Anne Sinclair, stood by him initially but later divorced him.
22. James McGreevey and Golan Cipel
New Jersey Governor James McGreevey resigned in August 2004 with a statement that began: “My truth is that I am a gay American.” He had appointed Golan Cipel, an Israeli citizen with whom he’d had an affair, to a New Jersey homeland security role despite Cipel having no relevant qualifications. When Cipel threatened to sue over allegations of harassment, McGreevey moved to get ahead of the story with his resignation.
The case raised legitimate questions about the appointment, since Cipel, as a foreign national, could not receive the security clearance required for the role. McGreevey’s wife, Dina Matos, stood beside him at the press conference, an image that became one of the defining moments of political-scandal theater in that decade.
23. David Vitter and the D.C. Madam
Louisiana Senator David Vitter admitted in 2007 that his phone number appeared in the records of the D.C. Madam escort service run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey. He issued a statement describing it as a “serious sin” and asking for forgiveness. The story might have ended a career. Instead, Vitter survived, was re-elected to the Senate in 2010, and later ran unsuccessfully for governor of Louisiana.
The episode illustrated the uneven geography of political scandal: some politicians survive admissions that would end others, often depending on the political environment and the speed with which they confess.
24. Bob Livingston and His Undisclosed Affairs
The day before Bill Clinton was impeached by the House in December 1998, Larry Flynt’s magazine Hustler threatened to expose affairs by Louisiana Congressman Bob Livingston, who had just been selected to succeed Newt Gingrich as House Speaker. Livingston preempted the revelation by admitting to “affairs” from earlier in his marriage and immediately announcing his resignation.
The episode was particularly striking given that Livingston was presiding over Clinton’s impeachment for lying about an affair. His resignation speech on the House floor prompted Clinton to issue a public statement asking him to reconsider.
25. Gary Condit and Chandra Levy
California Congressman Gary Condit’s affair with 24-year-old intern Chandra Levy became national news in 2001 when Levy disappeared. Condit initially denied the affair but eventually admitted it after investigators established he had been seeing her. Her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. in 2002.
A man named Ingmar Guandique was convicted of the murder in 2010, though that conviction was later vacated and charges dropped in 2016. Condit was never a suspect in her death, but his handling of the investigation destroyed his political career. He was defeated in a Democratic primary in 2002 and never returned to office.
26. Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s affair with his chief of staff Christine Beatty became a criminal matter in 2008 when text messages proved he had lied under oath during a whistleblower trial, denying both the affair and the firing of police officers who had investigated it. He was charged with perjury and misconduct in office, pleaded guilty, resigned as mayor, and served 99 days in jail.
Kilpatrick’s story did not end there. Federal charges followed, and in 2013 he was convicted of 24 counts including racketeering, fraud, and extortion and sentenced to 28 years in federal prison. The affair was the thread that unraveled a much larger pattern of corruption.
27. François Hollande and Julie Gayet
French President François Hollande became tabloid fodder in January 2014 when the celebrity magazine Closer published photographs of him arriving by scooter, helmet in hand, at the apartment of actress Julie Gayet while still in a relationship with journalist Valérie Trierweiler. Trierweiler, described as France’s “First Girlfriend,” was hospitalized for what was reported as shock following the revelations.
Hollande confirmed the relationship with Gayet, declined to say whether Trierweiler remained First Lady, and referred to the matter as “private.” The French press reaction was notably less frenzied than an American equivalent would have been, though the story ran internationally. Hollande and Trierweiler separated shortly afterward.
28. Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills was one of the most powerful members of Congress in the 1970s, described by colleagues as having more influence over the U.S. tax code than any individual in history. In October 1974, Capitol Hill police stopped his car near the Tidal Basin in Washington at 2 a.m. after it sped away from them without headlights. An Argentine stripper named Fanne Foxe jumped from the car and ran into the Tidal Basin.
Mills admitted to a “friendship” with Foxe and to having a drinking problem. He survived the initial scandal, was re-elected in November 1974, and then was spotted drunk onstage at a Boston strip club where Foxe was performing. He resigned as Ways and Means chairman and eventually left Congress in 1977. He spent his later years advocating for addiction treatment and was celebrated for his sobriety.
29. Nelson Rockefeller and Megan Marshack
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller died of a heart attack in January 1979. The circumstances were notable: he was found not by his wife or family but by his 25-year-old aide Megan Marshack, at his townhouse on West 54th Street in Manhattan. Initial reports said he had died at his office; it took days before the details clarified.
The official cause of death was a heart attack. The precise details of what they were doing when he collapsed were never fully established, but the presence of Marshack, the late-night setting, and the delay in calling for help generated significant press attention. Rockefeller was 70.
30. Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
The affair between Donald Trump and adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, became central to American political and legal history in a way that few such stories have. Daniels claimed the encounter took place in 2006. In 2016, Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels in exchange for her silence shortly before the presidential election.
That payment became the basis for a New York criminal case. According to CBS News, Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May 2024, making him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a felony. He was sentenced to an unconditional discharge in January 2025. The affair, initially treated as tabloid material, ultimately produced a criminal trial that ran for weeks and captured the attention of the world.
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What All These Stories Share
The common thread across three centuries of politicians and their affairs isn’t recklessness, exactly, though there’s plenty of that. It’s the belief that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them, paired with the genuine shock when they find out that they do. FDR concealed Lucy Mercer for thirty years. Harding needed DNA testing nearly a century after his death to confirm what his mistress had been saying all along. Clinton looked into a camera and lied to 270 million people with the practiced ease of a man who had been getting away with things for a long time.
Some of these affairs changed history in real ways: the Profumo scandal helped topple a British government; the payments to Stormy Daniels produced the first felony conviction of a sitting U.S. president. Others changed only the individuals involved, ending careers that might otherwise have run for decades. A few ended more discreetly than they should have, given what they revealed about the men involved.
The most striking thing, looking at them together, is not that these affairs happened. Politicians are human, and humans are imperfect. What stands out is how many of the people on this list seemed to believe, right up until the moment they didn’t, that they would be the exception. The power that makes public life so attractive appears to do something to a person’s sense of how the rules of ordinary life apply to them. That’s not a partisan observation. It shows up on both sides of the aisle, across generations, across continents. The pattern is the story.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.