10 Political Couples With Massive Age Gaps

Some folks can't resist an age-gap romance, and the latest "Bridget Jones" movie proves as much. Unlike previous installments, which saw Renée Zellweger's character romancing age-appropriate beaus like Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, and Patrick Dempsey, "Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy" paired her up with Leo Woodall, breakout star of the second season of "The White Lotus." Woodall is 28 to Zellweger's 55, making the relationship an unusual one in an entertainment landscape that usually sees older men paired with younger women. However, pop culture isn't the only sphere where we're fascinated by age-gap relationships; politicians also make headlines for them. After all, our interest in age gaps is related to questions of power. 

The 10 politicians on this list are in newsworthy age-gap relationships. In some cases, the politician is the elder party, raising questions about consent and power dynamics. In other cases, the politician is the younger one, surprising commentators and followers. In all cases, politicians are worth scrutinizing, as hypocrisy around age can affect their ability to govern. "It's fine to say, 'Age is just a number,' but the truth is, age, in many cases, determines power ... Whether you want the power or not, you automatically have it, and left unacknowledged, power can have a corrosive effect," relationship therapist Cyndi Darnell told TheBody. In other words, we may not mind the age gap, but we'll certainly pay attention to it.

When Donald Trump assumed the office of the presidency for the second time in 2025, he named Karoline Leavitt as his new press secretary. Leavitt is the youngest press secretary in American history, assuming the role at only 27 years old. Her age brought a lot of attention to the conservative firebrand, who has gone viral online for testy exchanges with the press that include banning the Associated Press from her newsroom for refusing to concede Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America." However, She has also attracted attention due to the significant age gap in her relationship with husband Nicholas Riccio, who is 32 years older than his wife. Leavitt doesn't talk about him much, telling her Instagram followers, "He doesn't have social media and he's an introvert ... I respect his privacy on here — but he's my number one fan, the best dad, and just the best man I've ever met" (via The Daily Mail).

Indeed, Leavitt brings a great deal of drama to her new role. For instance, she'd previously worked in Trump's first administration as a speechwriter, and she unsuccessfully ran for Congress during the years between his terms. The failed campaign left Leavitt with major money problems, but Trump snapped her up for his new administration anyway. "Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator. I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium," Trump said in a statement (via ABC News).

Senator Mitch McConnell is one of the oldest senators currently serving in Congress, behind only Chuck Grassley and Bernie Sanders. He's experienced a number of health problems in recent years, including appearing to freeze up during multiple press conferences due to lightheadedness, finding himself unable to speak. In February 2025, he fell down the stairs at the Capitol building, ending up in a wheelchair, even though his staff insisted he was "fine."

The truth about CcConnell's wife Elaine Chao, on the other hand, is that she is significantly younger than her husband. Chao, who is 11 years his junior, is actually his second wife, but they've been married since 1993. Chao has a political career all her own, having served under multiple presidents; most recently, she was Donald Trump's secretary of transportation during his first term. 

She doesn't just support Republicans in the White House; she's also one of her controversial husband's staunchest supporters. When he won re-election in 2014, for example, Chao spoke at a victory rally in support of her husband. "I couldn't be more grateful that Mitch will have something to do that will keep him busy for the next six years," she teased (via C-SPAN). "I mean, I love the man, but I don't want him home for lunch every day."

President Donald Trump has been married several times. He was first coupled up with Ivana Trump, and together they had multiple children, including Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka. Next, though, Trump had an affair with Marla Maples, leading to a marriage that became a tabloid sensation. He left Maples for a Slovenian model named Melania, who became his third wife.

They met at a Fashion Week party in the late 1990s, according to her memoir "Melania." She had no idea who he was at the time, writing, "I recognized the name, and I knew he was a businessman or celebrity, but not much else" (via Hola!). 

Trump is 24 years older than she is, but that doesn't stop Melania from fiercely defending her husband, even when they supposedly disagree. In her memoir "Melania," for example, the two-time first lady insisted that she doesn't support her husband's stance on abortion. "Restricting a woman's right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life," she wrote (via The Guardian). Nevertheless, even though Supreme Court justices appointed by her husband were responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade — which led to abortion rights being taken away — Melania supported her husband's campaign to return to the White House.

Like several other politicians on this list, Newt Gingrich has a long history of leaving various wives for newer, younger ones. In the late 1990s, while the congressman was one of the leading voices pursuing impeachment against President Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Gingrich was having an affair of his own. He'd left his first wife Jackie while she was actively sick with cancer to marry a woman named Marianne; then, Gingrich cheated on her with a woman then named Callista Beck, whom he later married. He acknowledged the hypocrisy in an interview with Focus on the Family's James Dobson, claiming, "There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them. I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm not only not proud of, but I would deeply urge my children and grandchildren not to follow in my footsteps" (via ABC News).

Newt and Callista Gingrich have been together ever since, even though he's 23 years older than she is. In fact, while he's no longer a member of Congress, Callista has ridden her husband's coattails to a political career of her own. During Donald Trump's first administration, she was named ambassador to Vatican City; when Trump returned to office in 2025, he named her the new ambassador to Switzerland. 

After he won re-election in 2024, Donald Trump named Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his new attorney general. That surprised Congress, who were aware that Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for a number of indiscretions, including allegedly paying a 17-year-old for sex over Venmo. Gaetz ultimately withdrew his name from consideration, leading Trump to write on Truth Social, "I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be attorney general. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration." Gaetz decided not to return to Congress, but the committee's report was released anyway, finding "substantial evidence" that he had indeed paid a minor for sex (via AP News).

The investigation didn't seem to phase Gaetz' wife Ginger, who — though, we're not making any insinuations — is 12 years younger than him. She reposted his withdrawal announcement on X, formerly Twitter, writing, "The end of an era."

Matt and Ginger have been together since 2020, when they met at a fundraiser held at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. The party was in March, and Ginger later revealed she initially didn't want to go because she was nervous about the then-exploding COVID-19 pandemic. She ultimately decided to attend, and they fell in love. "I have been traveling with him everywhere," she said. "I am his travel buddy." They were engaged by the end of the year, when she was 26 years old.

The most extreme age gap on this list belongs to Congressman John Rose, a Republican representative from Tennessee, and his wife Chelsea. She is so much younger than he is that when they first got married, he was 45 years old and she was still in college.

Details are a little murky surrounding the couple's initial meeting, but they seem to have crossed paths several times while she was still a high school student. There was an article about Chelsea in the now-defunct Eagleville Times paper in 2007, when she was a high schooler and president of Future Farmers of America (FFA), a student-led nonprofit organization. The article says that Chelsea first met with Rose during an FFA convention, where he previously served as a board member. Three years later, in 2010, Chelsea told The Murfreesboro Post that Rose had given her a generous scholarship named after his parents. "Through the scholarship that he provides, I've not had to have a job through college. I've been able to train, improve, focus on FFA, and focus on school. That scholarship has made all the difference," she said. "He has also coached me during my preparation, which has been extremely helpful." They were married within four years of meeting.

Rose's constituents seem unhappy with the relationship. He wished her a happy anniversary on Facebook in 2019, writing, "Thanks to everyone for your support of our family." Many commenters replied simply, "Groomer."

President Donald Trump isn't the only recent president to be significantly older than his spouse. There are also many strange things about Jill and Joe Biden's marriage, and their age gap is one of them. Joe Biden, too, is considerably older than his wife Jill, clocking in at nine years her senior. When they met, for example, Joe was already a senator. At a fundraiser, Jill explained her initial hesitation to dating the man who would become her spouse. It was the 1970s, and she recalled, "It was Vietnam, love beads, equal rights. I wore my hair down to the middle of my waist, and so did most of the men I dated" (via The Independent). Then came Joe. "One day, I was asked out on a date from out of the blue, and that evening a handsome young senator showed up at my door. I took one look at his perfect suit and his leather loafers and I thought, 'Thank God it's only one date.'"

They've been together ever since, with Jill sticking by Joe's side even as questions swirled about whether he'd simply grown too old to run for president again. At a Seniors for Biden event in June 2024, she told the crowd, "Joe Biden is a healthy, wise 81-year-old ready and willing to work for you every day to make our future better. Joe isn't one of the most effective presidents of our lives in spite of his age, but because of it" (via CNN). He stepped down from the nomination mere weeks later.

American politicians aren't the only ones who have hit the headlines thanks to significant age gaps with their significant others. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, became an international sensation when he married supermodel and singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The French press became obsessed with whether or not the relationship would last; after all, he's 13 years older, and she was used to the fast-paced, jet-setting life of being a model.

They stuck it out, however, remaining together even as he lost re-election. It seems that Bruni-Sarkozy really did love her husband and even shared how she'd won him over by reading him her poetry the night they met. "I wanted to show him I was a poet, eh? Poet he never had ... Third marriage, but with a poet, no? I'm not Yeats, but I still try, you know, I try to write my poetry," she told The Guardian in 2013.

Bruni-Sarkozy had previously been in relationships with musicians like Mick Jagger, so she told the outlet that she was prepared for the political whirlwind that followed their marriage. "I was actually happy, because that famous thing really helped me through the time that my husband was the president," she said. Still, she had to straighten up her act, realizing, "There is no way to be funny any more. Fun doesn't really work with this kind of position, so I couldn't play around."

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy isn't the only French president whose relationship has become fodder for age-gap conversations. In the case of President Emmanuel Macron, however, the age gap actually goes the other direction. Macron's wife Brigitte is the older one, clocking in at 24 years his senior. In fact, one of the strange things about Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron's marriage is that they originally met when Brigitte was his high school teacher. His parents pulled him out of that school and sent him away to boarding school, trying to separate the two in order to break Emmanuel's love for his teacher. Brigitte told Paris Match, "For me, such a young boy was crippling. Emmanuel had to leave for Paris. I told myself that he would fall in love with someone his [own] age" (via The Independent). 

She added, "It didn't happen." Instead, they stayed in touch and reconnected romantically. They married in 2007, making the then-future president a stepdad to Brigitte's adult children. Macron thanked them at their wedding, telling the trio, "Thanks for accepting us, a not-quite-normal couple."

Brigitte supports her husband's political career, telling the magazine that she knew when he was a student that he was destined for greatness. "I had many brilliant pupils, and none had his capability," she said. "I have always admired him."

Before she married former Brazilian president Michel Temer, Marcela Temer was a supermodel. By the time he took office in 2016, she was 33, and he was 75; as you might expect, the couple's massive age gap made international headlines. So, too, did Marcela's behavior while her husband was in office, as she was roundly criticized in the media for some massive, extravagant spending. At Michel's inauguration, Brazilian commenters expressed their disgust for her lifestyle, writing, "Great, now there's no hope for reducing the national debt. Her expenses will see to that" (via The Daily Mail). The population was already familiar with her behavior, it seems, thanks to her husband's stint as vice president. When he first took office, Marcela reportedly insisted on multimillion-dollar renovations to the couple's residence before she would move in, with the bill paid by taxpayers.

The headlines she generated while her husband was in office weren't all bad, however. In 2018, she made international news when she jumped into a lake to rescue her dog. Picoly, a Jack Russell terrier, evidently tried to attack some ducks and then couldn't get out of the water, leading the First Lady to leap in after him. Brazilian commenters made jokes about that, too. One wrote, "Marcela's dog tried to commit suicide! It couldn't put up with Temer!" (via France24).