REPRINTED FROM PEOPLE MAGAZINE:
HILLARY AND CHELSEA: GRACE UNDER FIRE
Issue
Date: Feb. 15, 1999
The Ties That Bind
Separated by a continent, united by
a lifelong bond, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton rely, in these worst of times, on
each other
In April 1997, at the Sidwell Friends School's annual
mother-daughter banquet in Washington, D.C., Hillary Rodham Clinton swept her
hair into a ponytail, slipped on a pink tutu and black leotard top and walked
onstage to deliver a show-stopping impersonation of her ballet-obsessed
17-year-old daughter. Turning to another mother portraying a daughter, Hillary
feigned a pout. "Your mother embarrasses you in front of maybe a couple hundred
people," she wailed with mock adolescent angst. "My mother embarrasses
me in front of millions."
Two years later it isn't Chelsea Clinton's mother who has become the
embarrassment. Instead it is her father, and for the most humiliatingly
personal reasons. Over two turbulent decades in politics, Bill Clinton's
immediate family--his ambitious, devoted wife and adoring daughter--have always
formed a protective barrier around him. Throughout the Lewinsky-and-impeachment
ordeal, they have done it again. But this time, because it was Clinton
inflicting the wounds, his wife and daughter have reached out to each other
more than ever before. In the process, they have strengthened a relationship
that began with the birth of a desperately wanted child, grew in the shadow of
a sometimes troubled marriage and was nurtured by a mother whose daughter is
not only the focus of her emotional life but also her proudest legacy.
And so, at this past New Year's Renaissance Weekend, while a pensive President
walked alone on the deserted beach in Hilton Head, S.C., Hillary and Chelsea
stayed behind in their borrowed oceanfront house. Following an unspoken rule of
their relationship, mother and daughter have always refused to let the world
see their private pain. This past year, too, each has faced the world without
flinching. "Chelsea has her mother's strength," says ABC 's Dr. Nancy
Snyderman, a longtime friend of Hillary's. "She's been bred for it." For her
part, Hillary, 51, has emerged from behind dark glasses to savor the cheers of
crowds in New York (where there has been speculation she may run for the U.S.
Senate next year) and elsewhere to flaunt her newly glam image on the cover of
Vogue and provide a conspicuous presence at her husband's Jan. 19 State
of the Union address.
|
DONALD R.
BROYLES/AP
|
 |
Chelsea, who will turn 19 on Feb. 27, also has kept her head high. Last summer,
the day after her father admitted his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, it was
his daughter who seemed to hold the family together, linking hands with both
parents as they left Washington for Martha's Vineyard. Aboard Air Force One,
Chelsea sat with her mother at some distance from the President. But when the
plane landed, she stepped into the breach, bravely marching out to glad-hand
well-wishers. "Chelsea took it upon herself to be the emissary, and she was
terrific. She just made everyone feel great," says family friend Rose Styron,
wife of author William Styron. Last fall another Clinton friend, diplomat
Richard Holbrooke, was surprised to see her turn up at a reception following
his speech on the Stanford campus. "She gave me a big hello and a hug," he
says. "This was at the height of the storm, and she was poised and calm." Then
in December, after surviving a busy semester--and a breakup with her boyfriend
of six months, swimmer Matthew Pierce--a breathless Chelsea, at the White House
on the night of her father's impeachment, appeared "so upbeat and teenage,"
says a friend of the family's. "She came running in and said, `I've got to run.
I'm so late for a party, my friends are going to kill me.'"
Be assured: Chelsea Clinton is not in denial. In August she listened as her
52-year-old father privately confessed his sexual indiscretions to her and her
mother. "He outlined what happened in a very difficult discussion and then
asked for forgiveness," says Carolyn Staley, a childhood friend of Bill's.
Understandably, Chelsea was furious. "That was a painful, painful time,"
recalls one former White House aide. "There was a terrible sense of betrayal."
And now, in the morning before her seven Stanford housemates are awake, she
often sits alone in the kitchen and keeps up with impeachment developments in
the newspaper--usually USA Today. (She's not a fan of The
Washington Post, which broke the Lewinsky story, because, as she told
former presidential adviser Dick Morris's niece, "they don't like my parents.")
Beyond that, Chelsea "doesn't talk about the scandal, even to her closest
friends," says one of the group that has formed a cordon around her. "It's
something I would never bring up to her, and she doesn't let on at all."
Instead, the Stanford sophomore, who wants to become a pediatric cardiologist,
turns to her mother for solace, as she always has. The two exchange letters and
frequent late-night phone calls. And though no one believes that Chelsea is
taking sides between her parents -- "She loves them both," insists a friend -- she
"is very, very much an advocate of her mother's," the friend adds. And
what advice is Mother dispensing? Says a longtime friend, who describes Hillary
as being "as deeply wounded" as Chelsea: The First Lady is fond of the dictum
"`Just keep on keeping on,' and I'm sure she's told Chelsea that." Beyond that,
the two reveal little, even to intimates. "Let's face it. This has just been so
humiliating for the two of them," says one former aide close to Hillary and
Chelsea. "They don't want to talk about it, and nobody asks."
PAGE 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
