Chelsea Clinton And Marc Mezvinsky's Relationship Timeline

When Chelsea Clinton was a teenager, she was thrust into fame thanks to her parents. After all, she was put on the world stage when her father became president of the United States. That led to a wild amount of attention for a kid to deal with, including awful jokes from people like Rush Limbaugh, who infamously joked, "Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is also a White House dog?" At the time, she was 13.

Decades removed from her time as a child under the media spotlight, Clinton is now the author of numerous books for children. Books like "She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World" teach kids about the very system she grew up in. She's also been an activist for women's rights. In a 2023 speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, she acknowledged backsliding equality, noting, "We have to secure the progress that we've made and keep pushing forward."

Clinton is now many other things, too. She's also a wife and a mother because of her relationship with husband Marc Mezvinsky, which means she now gets parenting advice from her own mother. Though they married in 2010 and first went public as a couple in 2005, they've known each other for most of their lives, owing to their shared political upbringings. This is Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky's relationship timeline.

By 1997, Chelsea Clinton's father was still president, but her teenage years in the White House were coming to an end. This meant the time had come for her to choose somewhere to go to college. Naturally, there was much speculation about where she would end up. "It's the request of the president and Mrs. Clinton that Chelsea be allowed to have as normal a childhood as possible while living at the White House," the first lady's spokeswoman Neel Lattimore had told The Washington Post on the occasion of her 16th birthday. Leaving the White House to attend school, on the other hand? All bets were off.

The news finally broke in April 1997. CNN reported that Clinton had chosen Stanford University. "I'm just grateful this day has come," Hillary Clinton told reporters, acknowledging the long process of choosing between schools like Brown, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. President Bill Clinton added, "She had wonderful choices, she made her own decision. Her mother and I are proud of her and support her."

Quickly, though, the press noticed something about Chelsea's choice of school: Stanford was the same school attended by her old pal Marc Mezvinsky. While speculation ran rampant that Chelsea chose Stanford to get closer to Marc Mezvinsky, his mother Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky quashed any rumors of romance. "I think she's too smart for that," the former U.S. congresswoman told The Spokesman-Review. "They're really good friends, just dear friends."

Sometime after Stanford, Marc Mezvinsky and Chelsea Clinton reconnected, and this time their friendship turned to romance. Clinton had spent the last few years at Oxford, dating a man named Ian Klaus. After a Versace show in Milan, Clinton and Klaus were spotted dancing together, leading The New York Daily News to remark, "Looks like Chelsea Clinton has inherited her father's lust gene." (Look, it was the early aughts; people were still caught up in Monica Lewinsky fever and evidently weren't afraid to be openly misogynistic toward a graduate student and her boyfriend just having fun.)

Clinton and Mezvinsky, though, apparently first stepped out together in 2005. A few years later, as public attention once more turned to Clinton amid her mother's campaign for president, The New York Times reported on her new relationship. The outlet spoke with friends who said the couple weren't afraid of public displays of affection, cuddling up at parties no matter who was watching. The outlet also noted that if Hillary Clinton were to win the presidency, a potential Clinton/Mezvinsky wedding would've taken place under a Clinton White House. Chelsea was said to be trying to learn more about Mezvinsky's Jewish faith, even attending a Shabbat dinner at the home of a friend.

Vanessa Kerry, daughter of John Kerry, spoke with The New York Times about the scrutiny faced by political daughters. "I can't have any conception of what she goes through," she said.

Even though Marc Mezvinsky and Chelsea Clinton tried to keep details of their wedding private, there was significant public interest anyway. When Ryan Seacrest asked Bill Clinton about the impending nuptials, he said (via People), "I always thought being her father was my most important job, so it's a big day for me. [It's] the biggest day in her life, probably."

The wedding took place in Rhinebeck, New York, a picturesque town a short drive from Manhattan. Rhinebeck was overrun with well-wishers and onlookers, some of whom spoke with The New York Times about the ceremony. "It's royalty. It's our royalty," Chelsea's friend Arlene Newman said, while another friend, Linda Ennis, complimented Chelsea's looks. "She's turned into such a beauty," she noted. Afterward, Bill and Hillary Clinton released a statement, saying, "We could not have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate the beginning of their life together."

Because Mezvinsky is Jewish and Clinton grew up Christian, the wedding featured a blending of traditions. They were married under a chuppah, and the groom wore a prayer shawl in addition to his yarmulke. Consequently, the marriage touched off discourse about growing acceptance of interfaith weddings. In an op-ed for HuffPost, rabbi and author Edmund Case wrote about the various ways Clinton and Mezvinsky might incorporate their religions in their marriage moving forward. He wrote, "As so many others are proving, the struggles intermarried couples face can be great — but the rewards can be greater."

By the time 2014 rolled around, Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky had been married for only a few years and had already dealt with rampant speculation in the press about a possible divorce. They powered through, and that year, Clinton opened up about married life in an interview on "Mondays With Marlo" (via Politico). Both halves of the couple had high-powered jobs, which meant they needed to work out a way to remain committed to one another even though they weren't necessarily spending as much time together as they would've liked. 

Date nights, it turned out, became incredibly important to the couple. They insisted on at least one a week. "Sometimes, that means there are weeks where we don't really see our friends, but we ensure that every week at least we have one date night," she said.

Furthermore, Clinton also emphasized the importance of regular communication. "[W]e ensure that if we're really tired one night, we don't talk about our days," she said. "That's OK, but we never have two days where we don't talk about our days." Their regular check-ins made sure both parties felt both supported and informed about what their partners were up to. "[We do] little things like that, that might sound manufactured," Clinton said, "but that are really important to the discipline of maintaining strong communication and the bonds that are so important to each of us."

With her first daughter's first birthday approaching, Chelsea Clinton spoke with People about life as a mom. She said she was loving it, and that being a mom made her reconsider many relationships in her life. "Somehow, I love my husband even more, I love my parents even more ... I think my love for Charlotte has just opened more space in my heart and my brain that I didn't even know was there," she said.

Clinton did have one gripe, however: Marc Mezvinsky apparently avoided diaper duty! She insisted that her husband helped in other ways, telling the magazine that his reluctance to change dirty diapers was the exception. In fact, she said it had become a running joke between them. "He's so attentive, he's so engaged with her, reading to her, helping her get dressed, getting her into her pajamas at night, helping give her a bath," she promised. "Everything else."

Apparently, Mezvinsky wasn't particularly happy that his wife shared this information in the pages of People. Clinton appeared on "Today" (via People) shortly after the interview and revealed that her husband had started to pitch in. "He was really rather mortified that I shared that, so he's been changing lots of diapers in the last week," she shared. "I didn't know that that would have the impact it would. If I did, I would have talked to People much earlier!" she joked.