Meet J.D. Vance's Wife, Usha

In July 2024, Donald Trump flexed his Hollywood connections with his left-field VP pick, J.D. Vance. While the former Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, served as Trump's right-hand man during his first term as president between 2016 and 2020, the Republican presidential nominee chose the author-turned-politician to join him on the ticket for the 2024 election. 

Vance rose to prominence following the publication of his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," in 2016, which was later adapted into a hit film. Vance has since left the literary world for the political sphere. In 2022, he was elected to the United States Senate as a representative for the state of Ohio. While much of his story is in the public domain, not as much is known about the woman who has been taken along for the ride — his wife, Usha Vance. She has made sporadic media appearances alongside her husband, but there is still much to learn about this addition to the Republican elite. 

Trump's political reign has long been criticized for spurning racial diversity in America, with the man himself often accused of supporting white supremacist activists, like when he called Laura Loomer, who is known for making racist comments, "terrific" in 2023. It's come to a surprise for many, then, to find that J.D. Vance's wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants. Before she married Vance, she was known as Usha Chilukuri, and she was raised in a suburb of San Diego, California. Prior to her arrival, her parents emigrated from Andhra Pradesh, a southern coastal area of India.

Far away from the working-class Appalachian community that her husband has closely aligned himself with, Usha was raised in the affluent neighborhood, Rancho Peñasquitos. Usha comes from highly educated parents, with her father working as a mechanical engineer and her mother as a biologist. 

Usha Vance has kept a relatively low profile throughout her husband, J.D. Vance's, meteoric rise to fame. Even before he made his debut on the political stage, Usha Vance kept her praise of her author husband to a minimum. In 2016, the mother-of-three's Goodreads account posted a subtle 5-star rating for J.D. Vance's memoir "Hillbilly Elegy." 

It seems this introverted nature is left over from Usha Vance's childhood, as the daughter of Indian immigrants very rarely made any appearances in the media before she met her spouse. However, she did squeak her way into an article by the San Diego Union-Tribune once when she was 17 and was competing in a trivia competition. The young woman, who then went by Usha Chilukuri, spoke on her trivia technique, saying, "It's not enough to know the answers, you have to do it fast" (via The Standard).

Despite the quiet persona Usha Vance has adopted during her husband's political career, friends from her past have used Vance's increased visibility as an opportunity to reveal details about what it was like growing up with such a go-getter. 

One man who was a close friend of her family, Vikram Rao, spoke with The New York Times about the girl he once knew. He described a young Vance as an ambitious, enterprising child, recalling, "By age 5 or 6, she had assumed a leadership role. She decided which board games we were going to play and what the rules were going to be. She was never mean or unkind, but she was the boss." This tale resembles the origin stories of female political figures of years past, including how Hilary Clinton broke the glass ceiling in D.C. politics.

Usha Vance has had an impressive academic career. She started out her stint in higher education at Yale University where she studied history for four years. Long before she sealed her fate and joined up with Donald Trump's 2024 running mate, she had an educational adventure across the pond at the University of Cambridge when the history graduate was awarded a renowned Gates Fellowship. Reserved for academically-gifted students from outside the UK, the Gates Fellowship allows its recipients to study for a postgraduate degree in any subject of their choosing. At her 2010 graduation ceremony, Usha Vance received a Master of Philosophy in the study of the origins of copyright law.

After graduation, Usha Chilukuri eventually returned to Yale in 2013 to enroll into its law school. It was there where Usha and J.D. Vance crossed paths. The intellectually curious pair joined a university-based discussion group titled Social Decline in White America, and the rest is history. In his bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," J.D. Vance wrote that Usha became his "Yale spirit guide" throughout his time at law school. A clearly in-love Vance wrote, "She instinctively understood the questions I didn't even know to ask and she always encouraged me to seek opportunities that I didn't know existed."

According to The New York Times, J.D. Vance's wife, Usha Vance, was on the record as a Democratic voter as recently as 2014. Considering the fact that Usha Vance's husband, as well as his running mate Donald Trump, are about as far right as you can get in American politics, this may come as a surprise to poll watchers. 

J.D. Vance's veer to the right has been documented on his social media channels and publicity tours for "Hillbilly Elegy," but Usha Vance's switch-up is a bit more of a mystery. Although old friends of Usha Vance's have come out to say that she fraternized with left-wing students during her time in England, the potential second lady has clearly since embraced her husband's ultra-conservative views. In 2022, she sat down with her husband for an interview with the controversial channel Newsmax, known for perpetuating the narrative of a stolen election following Donald Trump's loss in 2020. 

From J.D. Vance's memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," it's clear that he fell hard and fast for the his Yale classmate. In the section where he recalls meeting his future wife, Vance gushes about the revelation that he was falling in love. Vance wrote, "I had dated other girls before, some serious, some not. But Usha occupied an entirely different emotional universe. I thought about her constantly. One friend described me as 'heartsick' and another told me he had never seen me like this."

Only a few years later, and the pair were saying "I do." Usha Chilukuri became Usha Vance in an interfaith ceremony held in Kentucky in 2014. With J.D. Vance hailing from a Christian family and his bride having been raised by a Hindu family on the West Coast, they exchanged both rings and religious traditions in their wedding ceremony.

From the stunning transformation of Chelsea Clinton to Malia And Sasha Obama's head-turning transformations, it's become abundantly clear that growing up in the political spotlight can irrevocably change a person's path in life. 

Three potential White House babes to keep an eye on are Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel Vance — the three children of Usha Vance and J.D. Vance. The Vance children are not yet old enough to cross the street without holding mom or dad's hand. In fact, when Trump anointed Vance as his running mate, Ewan was 6, Vivek was 4, and Mirabel was 2. However, it has now become a possibility that these three young ones will have a future very similar to Chelsea Clinton, the Obama girls, and all those D.C. babies of years past. The vice president and family typically live in a historic home (which is also white) on the United States Naval Observatory grounds.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has been at the center of controversy, having been embroiled in two high-profile sexual assault cases. Famously, when then-President Donald Trump first tapped the Yale alum for a place in the judicial branch, two women, Deborah Ramirez and Christine Blasey Ford, publicly accused him of sexual misconduct.  

While Usha Vance has not publicly spoken out about her connection to Kavanaugh, it has piqued the attention of Republicans and Democrats alike that the wife of Donald Trump's running mate was once the employee of this controversial conservative figure. In fact, long before Usha Vance knew she would one day be entering the political spotlight, she worked in the U.S. Court of Appeals as a young law clerk under Judge Kavanaugh.

In 2017, she also clerked for the conservative Chief Justice Roberts. Former colleagues of Usha told The New York Times that she possessed "intimidating smarts."

Once a high-powered legal professional, Usha Vance appears to be getting primed and ready for her transition into full-time political wife. Although the Yale graduate formerly worked as a corporate litigator for a posh law firm based out of San Francisco, it was announced on the back of her husband's VP announcement that Usha Vance has decided to resign from Munger, Tolles and Olson. 

In a statement regarding her departure, a spokeswoman for the firm said, "Usha has informed us she has decided to leave the firm. Usha has been an excellent lawyer and colleague, and we thank her for her years of work and wish her the best in her future career." Although things appear to be civil between the two, one has to wonder what the water cooler chat was like behind closed doors. 

When it was first announced that the Vance family might soon be moving to Washington D.C., fans of J.D. Vance began reminiscing on the blockbuster film that put him on the map — "Hillbilly Elegy." Originating from Vance's memoir of the same name, the film follows the story of a Yale Law School hopeful attempting to juggle his prestigious career prospects with his chaotic family life back home. Although director Ron Howard told Deadline that Vance "did have reservations" about the book being made into a movie, "he was willing to talk about it" — and he ended up liking how it all came together.

The wife of the VP hopeful, Usha Vance, was played by the actor Freida Pinto. As more and more details about the pair's union come to light, it's clear that producers hit the nail on the head when they tapped the "Slumdog Millionaire" star to play the real-life Usha Vance, as both women project a quiet intelligence.

Although Usha Vance has been quiet on the mic herself, her husband J.D. Vance has been vocal about the role his wife has played in his rise to alt-right fame and a VP nomination. The two met while they were attending Yale University, but it's Mrs. Vance who holds the more impressive academic credentials under her belt. 

As a two-time graduate of Yale and a graduate of the postgraduate program at the University of Cambridge, the mom of three also possesses three degrees. J.D. Vance touched on this in an interview with conservative pundit Megyn Kelly, where he said that he was often "humbled" by his wife. He went on to say, "If I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am."

The "Hillbilly Elegy" author, J.D. Vance, first danced his way onto the political stage back in 2022 when he mounted a campaign to represent the state of Ohio in the U.S. Senate. Considering his memoir revolves around his childhood in Middletown, Ohio, his state pride came as no surprise to the literary community. However, his increasingly radical conservative views did surprise some. 

However, one person who it must not have come as a shock to is Usha Vance, who played a front-facing role in her husband's Senate run. Not only did Usha participate in the pomp and circumstance of her husband's speeches and rallies, but she also played a starring role in Vance's first-ever campaign ad. In a post on his Instagram, J.D. introduced the video with the caption, "I love our first ad, where my favorite person tells my story."

For someone who is the wife of a new high-profile member of the Republican Party, Usha Vance has stayed conspicuously out of the political arena. Although she appears to be a strong supporter of her husband, appearing in interviews alongside J.D. Vance and even going so far as to vouch for him in his own political ads, there is little evidence of what Usha Vance's personal political beliefs may be. 

The strongest indicator we have of her politics is a contribution Mrs. Vance made to Blake Masters, a man who was running for a seat in the Senate for the state of Arizona back in 2021. According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), this is the only political contribution Usha Vance has made in her lifetime. Masters, like her husband, is a Trump-endorsed conservative who also accepted money from billionaire Peter Thiel. 

Those familiar with J.D. Vance's bestselling book "Hillbilly Elegy" or the film based on it will know that his grandmother, who he called Mamaw, played a huge role in his life. As a child, Vance's parents were unfit to take care of him. His father was a mostly absent figure while his mother struggled heavily with substance abuse. In swept Mamaw, who took the young boy under wing and raised him herself.

Since reaching fame through his memoir, Vance has spoken openly about how much he reveres his Mamaw. He has also compared this instrumental figure to his wife Usha Vance. In a 2020 interview on the "The Megyn Kelly Show," Vance said, "I'm one of those guys who really benefits from having sort of a powerful female voice over his left shoulder." For a while, that voice was Mamaw, but now, Vance proudly says, "it's Usha." 

When it comes to tracking down the political investments and personal character of a figure as obfuscated as Usha Vance, it's important to follow the money. While it's no surprise to hear that Vance is the type of briefcase-carrying, high-powered woman to hold multiple positions at multiple different organizations, it may come as a surprise to learn that one of those organizations is the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. 

In 2021, the Orchestra announced that Vance had taken a seat on their board of directors the previous year. As a member of the directorial board, it would be expected that Vance would assist the Orchestra in making big financial decisions and even perhaps donating money herself. While she yet to speak out about her love of music, it can be assumed that Vance has a connection to classical tunes. 

Although Usha Vance seemed quite supportive of her husband J.D. Vance's campaign to become the senator from Ohio back in 2022, the former lawyer may have changed her tune when it comes to her husband's vice presidential run. Usha Vance adopted a more ambivalent tone when she spoke about bringing her family into the presidential spotlight, leaving some to worry about the potential second lady's readiness for the role. 

In June 2024, Usha and J.D. Vance were invited for to be interviewed on the program "Fox and Friends." When asked about the possibility of her husband becoming the vice president, Usha Vance said, "I'm not raring to change anything about our lives right now, but I believe in J.D., and I really love him, and so we'll just sort of see what happens with our life."