The Truth About Jill Biden's Ex-Husband

When Joe Biden tragically lost his first wife, Neilia, and infant daughter, Naomi, in a 1972 car accident, the newly elected Delaware senator was left devastated, grieving, and single-parenting his two surviving sons. While Biden went through some dark years, he did get a second chance at love a few years later, and in 1977, he married Dr. Jill Biden, the woman we now know as first lady.

It was a second marriage for both Joe and Jill, although Jill, unlike Joe, was with her first husband until divorce did them part. Their "meet cute" love story, according to the Daily Mail, began when Biden saw a picture of Jill appearing in an airport ad for Wilmington-area parks. He thought she looked like his kind of girl, and luckily for him, his brother Frank was acquainted with Jill and obligingly passed along her phone number. Forty-five years later, the twosome are still together. But what about Jill's first husband? Who was the man she was with before Joe? Bill Stevenson, it seems, is a man with quite an interesting past.

Bill Stevenson, according to Town Square Delaware, is an alum of the 1969 Woodstock festival. In fact, the three (or maybe four) days he spent slogging through the mud at Woodstock were to launch him on his life's first path in the music industry after he decided that the rock-and-roll life was the only one for him.

In the early '70s, Stevenson opened Newark's legendary Stone Balloon, a club Rolling Stone once called "the best-kept secret in rock and roll" and Playboy named as one of America's 100 best college bars. The club featured big-name acts in their early days, including the Allman Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, Ray Charles, Run DMC, the Dave Matthews Band, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, and Hootie and the Blowfish. On a Facebook photo posted by the 2.0 Stone Balloon reboot, Stevenson said he worked there for 33 years for up to 75 hours a week, but that he'd "never considered it 'work.'"

Stevenson once wrote a book about his experience as a club owner. While The Stone Balloon, the Early Years is long out of print, you can still pick up a used copy on Amazon. A 2013 Facebook post of Stevenson's also spoke of a movie that would be based on the club, but that movie seems to have sunk like a stone... you know what (balloon).

The Daily Mail also notes that Bill Stevenson, prior to his club-owning days, had once played for the University of Delaware football team (go Blue Hens!), and going by his own Facebook page today, he's still quite the sports fan.

Another one of Stevenson's passions in later life turned out to be plants, and he even founded a horticultural company and invented a plant support system that he sold to Scotts Miracle-Gro. He's also a gold medal-winning shot-putter in the National Senior Games, and, after suffering a near-fatal 2018 heart attack on the streets of New York City, began spearheading a nationwide campaign to equip patrol cars with defibrillators.

The ever-entrepreneurial Stevenson once posted a Facebook tribute to his "boss" (i.e., himself) of 42 years (as of 2011), calling him "a great guy," and "an amazing, humble, caring person [who] loves the Eagles, and Phillies too." He said he "couldn't ask to have worked for a better person," but soon admitted in the comments field that "It doesn't matter that I am self employed ! That is just a minor fact !"

Bill Stevenson describes himself as a liberal Republican, but notes that he actually voted for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. Since that time, however, he's become a Trump supporter, telling Inside Edition (via the Daily Mail) that he agreed with the ex-president's support of law enforcement.

Although he hasn't dipped his toe into political waters in years, he did actually get involved in local politics in 1972, the same year Joe Biden first ran for Senate. While Stevenson threw his support behind the incumbent Republican in the race, Caleb Boggs, it was not a match made in heaven. As Stevenson noted: "I had a disagreement with Boggs over corruption in Delaware and he told me: 'Get out of my office. Go work for that joke Biden'" (via the Daily Mail).

And that, according to Stevenson, is how he became involved with the (then) senatorial candidate's campaign. "Jill and I sat in the Bidens' kitchen," said Stevenson. "We worked on his campaign. I gave $10,900 to his first campaign — in cash." And now, Stevenson has more to add to his story of how his family and Joe Biden crossed paths in the early 1970s.

Jill Biden's ex-husband Bill Stevenson says he has a second book in the works, though he hasn't released a title. He claims it will tell the story of his life and include the real story scoop on how Joe and Jill Biden first got together. Basically, he implies it will be a tell-all tome focusing on his suspicions that his former wife may have been involved with Joe Biden while still married to him (a claim both Bidens refute, per Inside Edition).

Even so, Stevenson is quick to emphasize that he holds no grudges. "I genuinely don't want to harm Jill's chances of becoming first lady," he told the Daily Mail... well, apart from that whole voting for Trump thing. Still, after giving a few interviews shortly after Biden received his party's nomination, Stevenson refrained from dropping further bombshells prior to the election and has apparently stayed silent even after the inauguration. He did say of his famous ex, "She would make an excellent first lady," and also explained that "I'm not bitter because, if it wasn't for my divorce, I would never have met my wife Linda and she's the greatest thing in my life."

Whether or not he ever comes out with that allegedly incriminating memoir, one thing's for sure: Bill Stevenson, who was once named one of "The 50 Most Influential Delawareans of the Past 50 Years" by Delaware Today, will continue to be one of the state's most colorful characters.