Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton has opened up about how she wanted to “fade into the background” growing up due to media ridicule.
The 42-year-old global health advocate was just a month shy of her 13th birthday when she moved into the White House with her parents, then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton, after being in the spotlight for his father’s 1992 campaign.
She became a target of both conservative political pundits and professional comedians at such a young age that she can’t remember a time when she and her family weren’t mocked.
Chelsea reflected on being the subject of ‘relentless’ scrutiny and why she chose to keep her own children out of the public eye as one of the cover stars for Variety’s Power of Women issue.
Chelsea Clinton, 42, and her mother, Hillary Clinton, 74, sat down for a joint interview as two of the stars of Variety’s Power of Women issue.
The global health advocate reflected on the “relentless” scrutiny she faced growing up as the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. She is photographed with her parents in 1997.
“Sometimes, I really wanted to take a backseat because I didn’t want so many people looking at me, or so many bright lights blinding me,” she explained during her joint interview with her mother, Hillary, who is also honored.
Chelsea remembered the biblical phrase her mother had learned from her sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth King: ‘Do not hide your light under a bushel basket.’
“It’s certainly a warning I grew up with, and sometimes I really needed to hear it,” she said of overcoming the need to want to hide from her critics.
The aphorism is so significant to the mother-daughter duo that they named the production company they founded with Sam Branson, the son of billionaire Richard Branson, HiddenLight Productions.
“Something that Chelsea has done repeatedly is tell people to stay away from children. He’s been very consistent, and I really respect that,” Hillary told Variety.
Chelsea repeatedly defended former President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, while his father was in office, despite their families’ political feud.
Chelsea was a month shy of her 13th birthday when her father took over in January 1992. She said that sometimes she “really wanted to fade into the background” and for people not to look at her.
As a teenager, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called her a “dog” and made fun of her on Saturday Night Life.
“I feel such a palpable sense of responsibility because I wish more people had publicly defended me,” he explained.
After everything the former first daughter has been through, she is not afraid to be in front of the camera or speak in public, she never has.
“Fortunately I don’t feel that residual fear,” he said. “I didn’t feel afraid as a child, because otherwise I would have been afraid all the time. When I think about raising brave and resilient children, I try to think more about what I want to learn from my experience as a child rather than reacting to it.’
Chelsea shares three children – Charlotte, eight, Aidan, six, and Jasper, three – with her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, and has been very careful to keep them out of the public eye.
“It’s being aware all the time,” Hillary said of her daughter’s surveillance.
“And make them aware and not paranoid,” Chelsea added.
The mother (pictured with her daughter, Charlotte, in 2016) has been very careful to keep her three children out of the public eye, saying she wants them to be “aware and not paranoid”.
Chelsea repeatedly defended former President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, while his father was in office, despite their family’s political feud.
Chelsea (pictured with her parents at the Clinton Global Initiative this month) said she feels “such a palpable sense of responsibility” to help other kids in her position because she wishes someone had stood up for her.
Chelsea and Hillary have been promoting their first series with HiddenLight, ‘Gutsy’, an AppleTV+ documentary based on their 2019 bestseller ‘Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience’.
The show follows them as they embark on adventures with “some of the boldest and bravest women in the world,” including Kim Kardashian, Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson and Megan Thee Stallion.
In the first episode, Chelsea opened up about her complicated take on comedy after being teased on national television as a child.
“I think I had a different experience with comedy in some ways than a lot of people because when I was a kid, people who were professional comedians made fun of me,” she explained during a discussion with a group of comedians. .
Hillary noted that Chelsea also faced cruel beatings from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who called her a ‘bitch’ when she was 13, but said it didn’t bother her that much.
“That was different because Rush Limbaugh already hated us and he hated everything that you and dad stood for,” she told her mother. “So it was actually quite easy to say, ‘That’s not about me.'”
Chelsea and Hillary (pictured with comedian Amy Schumer) have been promoting their new documentary series ‘Gutsy’. In the first episode, Chelsea admitted that she has a complicated take on comedy after being made fun of on national television as a child.
“This episode really taught me a lot, because for a long time I thought comedy wasn’t really funny,” Chelsea told Yahoo Life. “I thought maybe I was petty, and this was really enlightening for me, and I learned a lot about myself.”
Chelsea explained that she found it much more annoying to be teased on Saturday Night Live as a child. She didn’t go into specifics, but Mike Myers and Dana Carvey made fun of her in a controversial Wayne’s World skit that aired in 1992.
The joke caused public outrage and was later removed from reruns of the sketch.
‘We felt, on reflection, that if it was hurtful in any way, it wasn’t worth it. She is a child, a child who did not choose to be in public life, executive producer Lorne Michaels said at the time, according to the Seattle Times.
Bill Clinton agreed during an interview with People that crossed the line.
“I really find it funny when they make fun of me,” he said. But I think you have to be pretty insensitive to make fun of a teenager. I think there is something quite off about people doing that.
Two decades later, Chelsea explained that the skit shaped her view of comedy and professional comedians.
“When SNL made fun of me, I was like, ‘Wow. A group of adults sat in a room [and] everyone decided it was a good idea,” he said. “Nobody thought, like, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t make fun of kids.’ okay, so I just don’t think comedy is funny or okay.”
When asked if he had a favorite comedian, he couldn’t think of anyone.
“This episode really taught me a lot, because for a long time I thought comedy wasn’t really funny,” Chelsea told Yahoo Life. “I thought maybe I was petty, and this was really enlightening for me, and I learned a lot about myself. And I learned a lot about comedy and have a whole new appreciation for it.
