Usha Vance is not interested in playing defense against gossip. In a rare interview conducted earlier this month, the second lady addressed the swirl of speculation surrounding her marriage to Vice President JD Vance and made it clear that public curiosity has little bearing on her real life.
The rumors began quietly in the fall and then snowballed. Usha Vance appeared at several public events without her wedding ring. Not long after, a video of JD Vance hugging Erika Kirk at a Turning Point USA event went viral, and online users concluded the state of a marriage they know almost nothing about.
© AFP via Getty ImagesAsked directly about the speculation in a USA Today interview, Usha said, “I find that one of the really curious things about this life is that people really like to read the tea leaves, and there's a kind of an industry building stories about everything that they can imagine."
The attention, she explained, has become something of a running joke at home. The couple, married since 2014, finds humor in the way their personal life has become fodder for strangers.
© Getty Images“I'd rather just sort of live in my marriage and in the real world and less in kind of the fever dreams that surround it,” Usha told the outlet. “So I mean, it is kind of a family joke, but also not something that I spend very much time thinking about.”
The wedding ring that launched a thousand theories turned out to have a far less dramatic explanation. Usha told People about her busy life as a working mother.
© Shannon Finney“I wear it when I wear it, and I don't when I don't,” she said matter-of-factly. “Sometimes I'm wearing it, and sometimes I've just been to the gym and showered and I'm not wearing it.”
That explanation aligns with the one offered last month after her ringless appearance alongside First Lady Melania Trump at Camp Lejeune. At the time, a representative said the second lady is “a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths, and forgets her ring sometimes.”
© Anna MoneymakerUsha is known for guarding her privacy. A former litigator and Supreme Court law clerk, she largely stepped out of the public eye before her husband’s political ascent.
When JD Vance was nominated for vice president, her professional life changed almost overnight. Her profile disappeared from her law firm’s website, and she found herself navigating a role she never sought.
© POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesReflecting on that shift, Usha acknowledged a sense of nostalgia for the life she left behind. “There are things that I miss and things that I'm excited to have moved on from,” she said, referring to her former career and the quieter rhythm of life before Washington.
She and JD met in their twenties while attending Yale Law School. More than a decade later, they are raising three children together, sons Ewan, 8, and Vivek, 5, and daughter Mirabel, 3. The family now lives at the vice presidential residence near the Naval Observatory.
