page_title: Chelsea Clinton
section_title: White House years
hierarchical_section_title: Chelsea Clinton / White House years
caption_attribution_description: English: (Left to right) Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and based on similar photos taken in the 1997 Christmas season was from that year.
context_page_description: Chelsea Victoria Clinton is an American author and global health advocate. She is the only child of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She was a special correspondent for NBC News from 2011 to 2014 and now works with the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative, including taking a prominent role at the foundation with a seat on its board.
  Clinton was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, during her father's first term as governor. She attended public schools there until he was elected president and the family moved to the White House, where she began attending the private Sidwell Friends School. She received an undergraduate degree at Stanford University and later earned master's degrees from University of Oxford and Columbia University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Oxford in 2014. Clinton married investment banker Marc Mezvinsky in 2010. They have a daughter and two sons.
context_section_description: On January 20, 1993, the day of her father's first inauguration, Chelsea moved into the White House with her parents and was given the Secret Service codename "Energy". The Clintons wanted their daughter to have a normal childhood, and they hoped to shield her from the media spotlight.
  Hillary Clinton followed the advice of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on raising children in the White House, and asked the press to limit coverage of Chelsea to her participation in public events such as state visits. Margaret Truman, daughter of former president Harry S. Truman, supported the Clintons, and in March 1993 wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times about the damage that could be done if the press made Chelsea a subject of intense coverage.
  Journalists debated the issue of allowing Clinton to retain her privacy. Most media outlets concluded that she should be off-limits due to her age, although Rush Limbaugh and Saturday Night Live both broadcast material mocking her appearance. During this phase of her life, her father said, "We really work hard on making sure that Chelsea doesn't let other people define her sense of her own self-worth ... It's tough when you are an adolescent ... but I think she'll be ok."
  The Clintons' decision to remove Chelsea from public school and send her to Sidwell Friends School, a private school in Washington, D.C., drew criticism. While several children of sitting presidents have attended Sidwell, the most recent prior child, Amy Carter, had gone to D.C. public schools. In a 1993 CBS This Morning town meeting, Bill defended the choice, saying Chelsea did not like "getting a lot of publicity" and would have "more control over her destiny" at Sidwell. Bill explained that they made their decision in an effort to protect Chelsea's privacy; they did not "reject the public schools". Sidwell's students and staff remained silent regarding Chelsea, declining to discuss her publicly. A veteran of Model United Nations, Clinton was a 1997 National Merit Scholarship semifinalist. She graduated from Sidwell Friends in 1997; her father spoke at the graduation ceremony.
  Following Chelsea's high school graduation, media speculation regarding her choice of college resulted in heavy press coverage. She ultimately chose to attend Stanford University. During her father's eight years in office, there were 32 stories in The New York Times and 87 network news stories about Chelsea. Of all presidential children preceding her, she received the most television coverage.
  Although her father was a Southern Baptist, Clinton was raised in and adheres to her mother's Methodist faith. She attended Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington and met with other teens on Sunday mornings to examine questions of faith, philosophy, and issues of concern to her age group. Her parents joined her at the youth group's parent-teen round tables. An adult group leader thought Clinton to be "a terrific kid" and observed that she was treated as an equal in the group. Away from church, her social activities included visits to a Planet Hollywood restaurant with friends and sleep-overs in and out of the White House. President Clinton sometimes joined her and her sleep-over friends for breakfast.
  At age four, Clinton had begun taking dance classes in Arkansas, and she continued her dance training at the Washington School of Ballet for several years. In her book, It Takes a Village, Hillary wrote that Bill was disappointed when Chelsea quit softball and soccer to concentrate on ballet, but he was nonetheless supportive, regularly attending her performances. She was cast in the role of the Favorite Aunt in the 1993 Washington Ballet production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.
  In early 1999, the Clintons learned of an article being planned by People that examined the First Family's relationships in the wake of scandals and the impending vote on President Clinton's impeachment. The Secret Service told the magazine they had concerns that the story could compromise Chelsea's security. People decided to run the story anyway, and Bill and Hillary is
caption: White House portrait of the Clintons
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