Chelsea Clinton's parents Hillary and Bill 'helped buy her $9m apartment'

Home Top

The nightmare aftermath of Hiroshima: Parents carry burned children over corpses and rubble in rare photos taken after the atomic bomb killed 140,000 and poisoned countless more
Tom Brady's diva demands: Millionaire quarterback moaned about color of his pool cover and demanded latest Tom Ford clothing in newly-released Deflategate emails
Microsoft increases paid maternity and paternity leave the day after Netflix announces new parents can take up to a year off
Aircraft seats and windows now wash up where MH370 jet wing was found... but distraught relatives say they REFUSE to believe wreckage came from missing jet
Pictured: Mentally ill suspect, 29, shot dead outside Nashville theater after attacking Mad Max audience with a hatchet and pellet gun while carrying a fake bomb
Colorado resident becomes the second person in the state to die from the plague so far this year
Pictured: Brave jogger, 20, who fought off a bear with pepper spray in Alaska wilderness as it mauled her and bit her head and body
Ex-Ohio police chief charged with beating wife the day before she was found hanging from ceiling fan in apparent suicide
Busta Rhymes is 'arrested and charged with assault after throwing protein drink container at gym worker'
Dogs can detect when people are dying or grieving by body language cues and smells only they can detect, experts claim
'I use it to protect my own kids': Jessica Alba finally responds to claims her Honest sunscreen is 'useless' and leaves children with painful sunburns
It's not just McDonald's! Now KFC, Taco Bell and Five Guys reveal their secret menus (including a Zinger Stacker and the Incredible Hulk)
Revealed: Scaremongering NYPD video of psychotic naked New Yorker high on 'weaponized marijuana' was actually of Iowa man high on PCP in 2002
Bill Cosby is ORDERED by judge to give deposition in lawsuit of woman who claims she was 15 when he sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion
The Game 'sued for $10M by contestant on his new reality show who claims he sexually assaulted her several times'
Married teacher, 39, arrested for 'having sex with her 13-year-old male student dozens of times at her home'
New video shows harrowing moment North Carolina cop shot dead unarmed black man after he crashed his car and went looking for HELP
Gun-wielding bounty hunters storm Phoenix police chief's home by accident following a tip-off on social media in the hunt for an Oklahoma fugitive
Louisiana cop is shot and killed while responding to report of a suspicious person inside a home
Sister of convict charged with shooting dead Memphis police officer says her brother was defending himself after the officer 'manhandled him'
More than 3,500 people detained in secretive Chicago police warehouse where there have been only THREE official visits from lawyers in a decade
Crab-like 'alien facehugger' is spotted on Mars in latest bizarre claim by conspiracy theorists
EXCLUSIVE: Wracked with guilt over Bobbi Kristina's death, Bobby Brown confides: 'I should have made her go to rehab and become her guardian - just like Britney Spears' father did to save her'
National Enquirer runs deathbed photo of Bobbi Kristina amid heated family feud over another image taken during her funeral

New profile in Vanity Fair has looked into the last five years of Chelsea Clinton's life, as she appears to move in the direction of public office
The report claims the Clintons have continued to hound the press about giving their now 35-year-old daughter privacy
Sources told the magazine that the Clintons also helped pay for Chelsea's $9.2million New York City apartment - a claim her reps deny
Meanwhile, Chelsea's husband, hedge-fund manager Marc Mezvinsky, is said to cull his clients from Clinton events
Chelsea is currently on the board of the Clinton Foundation, but she may have to resign if her mother is elected president
In that case, experts speculate that she could receive a role in her mother's administration

Published: 15:42 EST, 5 August 2015 | Updated: 23:41 EST, 5 August 2015

436

View
comments

Chelsea Clinton's awkward teenage years in the White House may be far behind her, but she's still treated with just as much protection as a first daughter.

Despite the fact that Chelsea is now in an important role on the board of her parent's billion-dollar charity, hardly anything critical has been written about the 35-year-old progeny of American political royalty in recent years, in large part due to an aggressive campaign by her parents flacks to keep the press at bay.

And like many a privileged child, the Clintons have given their daughter a lot of handouts in life - from helping to buy her a $9.25million apartment to referring their billionaire friends to Chelsea's financier husband, sources told Vanity Fair in a new profile.

The next generation: A new Vanity Fair profile on Chelsea Clinton details the many ways the 35-year-old is still protected like a first daughter. Pictured above at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in June

The article also claims that she used her father's guilt over the Monica Lewinsky scandal to her advantage, letting her parents foot the $3million bill for her wedding and taking liberties at the helm of the family foundation.

Much to the chagrin of longtime Clinton Global Foundation employees, Bill refused to rein Chelsea in when she started making sweeping changes to the non-profit in 2011.

'He has no ability to say no to her,' a source familiar with the foundation's inner workings told Vanity Fair reporter Evgenia Peretz.

While Chelsea did not agree to be interviewed for the Vanity Fair article, she has sat down with Vogue and Elle in the past, resulting in articles that reveal very little about her private life.

When the Clintons moved into the White House in 1993, Chelsea was just 13 years old. So it made sense that her parents asked the press to go easy on their young daughter.

For the most part, the press obliged (despite a few cruel comments about her teenage appearance), and Chelsea was even allowed a great deal of privacy when she moved across the country five years later to attend college at Stanford University.

American dynasty: Chelsea was just 13 years old when her father was elected president in 1993 (pictured above in Manhattan in 1992), and her parents asked the press to go easy on their young daughter during his eight years in the White House

Dowry: The Clintons reportedly paid $3million to give their beloved one-and-only daughter the wedding of her dreams in 2010

Chelsea Clinton opens up on supporting her parent's passions

But even once her father was long out of office, and she began campaigning for her mother, the Clintons fiercely protected their daughter's can-do-no-wrong image.

One particularly noteworthy dust-up happened in 2007, as Hillary Clinton was preparing for her first presidential primary.

Chelsea started speaking on her mother's behalf at campaign events across the country, and at one such event, journalist David Shuster, then at MSNBC, asked her some questions about her mother's policies.

Chelsea declined to comment, and Shuster was unsurprised. But he was a taken aback when he got a call from Hillary's flacks soon after, warning him that Chelsea was off limits.

A few nights later, he discussed the awkward exchange on air, saying Chelsea seemed 'pimped out'.

That comment obviously infuriated Hillary, who threatened to boycott a debate (set to be aired on NBC) and called for Shuster to be fired.

Shuster was able to keep his job, but not before being forced to write an apology letter to Chelsea, a show of how far the Clintons are willing to go to protect the image of their daughter.

And that's not the only time the Clintons have helped out their grown-adult daughter.

When Chelsea got married to longtime boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky in 2010, the Clintons picked up the $3million tab.

Clinton connections also appear to have paved the way for Mezvinsky's career.

Connected: Chelsea and Marc (pictured on the right attending the amfAR gala in February) run in a circle of very rich and prominent friends, including James Rothschild and Nicky Hilton, whose wedding the couple attended last month (the former first-daughter pictured on the left arriving at the Kensington Palace ceremony, James' uncle was an early investor in Marc's fund)

Bank of mom and dad: A source Vanity Fair that the Clintons helped finance Chelsea's $9.2million floor-through apartment in New York City's Flatiron District, a claim that Chelsea's reps have denied

After spending two years working at 3G Capital hedge fund and Goldman Sachs, Mezvinsky and two former colleagues started their own hedge fund called Eaglevale, raising $400million in investment money that included checks from such Clinton friends and supporters as billionaire Marc Lasry, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blackfein, and British investment banker Jacob Rothschild.

(Chelsea and Marc recently attended the wedding of Jacob's nephew, James Rothschild, to American heiress Nicky Hilton. And according to a recent Washington Post article, Chelsea lunches with Bono, attended Matt Damon's vow renewal, and is now charging six-figure fees to give speeches - the total of which goes straight back to the foundation)

A longtime Clinton associate told Vanity Fair that Mezvinsky continues to cull his clients from the Clinton rolodex, using events like the family's 'celebrity poker nights' to network.

With Chelsea having spent the beginning of her career in private equity, and with her husband in finance, you would think that the couple wouldn't be lacking for money.

But sources told the magazine that they asked Bill and Hillary for money when they bought a $9.25million apartment in New York City in 2013. (Chelsea's reps denied that claim to Vanity Fair.)

Chelsea may have started her career in the corporate world, with coveted jobs at McKinsey & Co and Avenue Capital, but now appears to be headed down the road to public office, something she recently said was 'absolutely' a possibility.

In 2011, she joined her parents at the Clinton Foundation and got a part-time job as a special correspondent for NBC, working on the now-cancelled show Rock Center with Brian Williams.

Chelsea Clinton speaking at event in Coachella Valley (archive)

Crash and burn: In 2011, Chelsea took a position as a special correspondent on Brian Williams' Rock Center news magazine. Sources told Vanity Fair that she was rarely present in the office and isolated herself from the rest of the team at NBC by hiring her own chief of staff, assistant and PR team

NBC ended up being a crashing failure for Chelsea, who came across as robotic on air and only ever turned in a few packages while getting paid a staggering $600,000 a year.

And it appears she didn't make many friends at the network, since she was rarely in the office and staffers told the magazine that they felt too intimidated to communicate with her about work directly.

There was a joke inside the building that she was the 'highest-paid ghost at NBC'

'There was a joke inside the building that she was the "highest-paid ghost at NBC"' one network source told the magazine.

That probably had to due in some part to the fact that she brought her own mini team to work with her at NBC, including a chief of staff, an assistant and an outside PR team to handle her image and manager her social media.

Meanwhile, Chelsea's role at the Clinton Foundation has been more well-received, but she isn't without her critics at the non-profit.

Shame? The article infers that Chelsea and her father had a tortured relationship after the Monica Lewinsky scandal

When she first started at the international charity four years ago, one of Chelsea's first moves was to order an outside audit.

Many of the foundation's employees found it uncomfortable that Chelsea would immediately begin critiquing their jobs, when she wasn't even working her way up the ranks to see how the charity works first hand.

'It was a very authoritarian action for someone who came in at day one,' a former foundation employee said. 'The feeling was: we're being audited - never a good word - because we're doing something wrong. We wondered, are our jobs at risk? That's not a comfortable feeling for many people who've been dedicating their lives to the foundation.'

Some employees higher up in the foundation went so far as to complain to Bill Clinton, but he did nothing to rein in his daughter.

'He has no ability to say no to her,' a source familiar to the drama told the magazine.

Vanity Fair's Peretz theorizes that Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky put a strain on their relationship that lasted all the way until she joined the foundation.

'When she arrived, in 2011, her father's prayer's were answered. It was a sign, perhaps, that all was forgiven and that his legacy would be secured through his daughter,' Peretz writes.

So when he finally had Chelsea on his good side again, Bill perhaps wasn't about to take on the role of a critical dad.

While some of Chelsea's earlier decisions in the foundation were criticized, others found her leadership to be just what the charity needed.

'The ethos that Chelsea has really helped instill here is that, as you evaluate, if the answer isn't, "This is a perfect program" that's not a failure but rather a learning opportunity.' Maura Pally, VP of Programs, said.

However, Chelsea's role at the Clinton Foundation is currently up in the air, given her mother's second run for the White House.

One of the early issues in Clinton's campaign are the millions of dollars the foundation accepted from foreign governments - including Saudi Arabian royalty - while she was Secretary of State, and how that might have affected U.S. global policy.

If Hillary Clinton ends up winning the presidency, it will no doubt raise even more questions about Bill and Chelsea's roles in the charity, and whether there will be too much of a conflict of interest.

Experts say the Clintons will likely step down from leadership positions in the foundation for the duration of Hillary's presidency, and if so, that means Chelsea could be making another big step towards politics with another handout from mom: a role in her administration.