The Illegitimate Children of American Presidents
DNA evidence proved Thursday that confirmed bachelor Warren Harding also fathered a child. He joins Thomas Jefferson and more presidents with secret kids—and the list could grow.
Photo Illustration by Alex Williams/The Daily Beast
Being the leader of the free world comes with a lot of responsibility. But apparently some of our leaders don’t think that responsibility extends to their marriages.
Long before Bill Clinton’s presidential sex scandal, a slew of men in the White House fathered illegitimate children. The latest to come to light is Warren G. Harding, who DNA evidence Thursday conclusively proved had a child with mistress Nan Britton.
Britton was criticized for attempting to blackmail Harding—who was president from 1921 until his death in 1923—telling tales of illicit sex in a White House coat closet. Yet after nearly 100 years, genetic tests confirm that Britton’s daughter, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, was in fact Harding’s child. Britton’s story was the first to capture national attention as a self-proclaimed White House mistress. The story was all the more difficult to prove because Britton destroyed the letters they exchanged, and Harding’s family contended that he was sterile. Their affair lasted six and a half years.