What are the varying public statements by William Stevenson and Jill Biden about their marriage timeline, and where were they first published?
Executive summary
Two competing public narratives exist about the timeline of Jill Biden’s first marriage to William (Bill) Stevenson: Stevenson's public accusations that Jill became involved with Joe Biden while still married to him, repeatedly aired in tabloid and local interviews (as reported in outlets citing the Daily Mail and New York Post) [1], and Jill Biden’s own retrospective framing of that early marriage as a youthful mistake, presented in her memoir and cited by national outlets [2]. Mainstream news reporting provides the factual timeline — marriage in February 1970, divorce in 1975, Jill meeting Joe Biden in March 1975 and marrying him in 1977 — as summarized in multiple major publications and local reporting [3] [4] [5].
1. William Stevenson’s public allegations and where they surfaced
William Stevenson has publicly alleged that Jill Biden “got together” with Joe Biden while she was still married to him, comments that Stevenson made in tabloid and local interviews that were later reported internationally; the South China Morning Post notes his 2020 remarks to the Daily Mail and his later comments to the New York Post as sources of that allegation [1]. Those claims did not originate in mainstream biographical accounts but in interviews Stevenson gave to tabloid press and local outlets, which then were picked up and amplified by national and international coverage [1]. Stevenson’s more personal recounting appears intermittently in local profiles and in material tied to his own bar and memoir projects — Hindustan Times reports he “refrains from discussing the specifics” of the divorce in his book The Stone Balloon: The Early Years, indicating the tabloid interviews are the clearest public record of his allegations [6].
2. Jill Biden’s public framing of the marriage and where it appears
Jill Biden has publicly referred to that first marriage in retrospective terms, including a line quoted in coverage of her memoir where she wrote that, “Looking back it may seem like a mistake of youth,” a passage cited in The New York Times’s reporting on the case [2]. That memoir excerpt — invoked by the Times — is the clearest instance of Jill Biden characterizing the marriage on the record; mainstream profiles and obituaries subsequently reiterate the dates and sequence rather than extend Stevenson’s allegations [2].
3. The widely reported factual timeline and the outlets that first conveyed it
Multiple reputable news organizations independently report the same core timeline: Jill Tracy Jacobs married William Stevenson in February 1970 when she was 18 and he was 23, their marriage lasted about five years with a divorce finalized in 1975, she met Senator Joe Biden in March 1975 and later married him in 1977 (reported by The Guardian, the BBC and NBC among others) [3] [4] [5]. Those outlets cite public records, contemporaneous reporting, and biographical accounts to establish dates; The Guardian and BBC pieces explicitly state the February 1970 marriage date and the five-year duration [3] [4], and local U.S. reporting reiterates the 1975 divorce timing and 1977 remarriage to Joe Biden [5].
4. How the provenance of claims shapes the public record
The provenance matters: Stevenson’s most provocative claims trace to tabloid interviews and partisan media moments (Daily Mail, New York Post coverage cited in SCMP), which carry different standards and incentives than autobiographical memoirs or news reporting of public records [1]. Jill Biden’s more measured, retrospective comment appears in her memoir and is reported by mainstream outlets — a different genre of source that mainstream papers like The New York Times treated as the primary on-the-record articulation by her [2]. Major news outlets reporting the criminal case and the basic chronology — BBC, Guardian, PBS/NBC/NYT — focus on verifiable dates and statements from official records and police releases rather than Stevenson's tabloid allegations [4] [3] [7] [2].
5. What reporting does not resolve
Contemporary reporting collates interviews, memoir excerpts and public records to create a consistent timeline, but gaps remain: articles cite Stevenson’s tabloid interviews and Jill Biden’s memoir lines, and they document the dates of marriage, divorce and subsequent marriage to Joe Biden, yet reporters note that police and official records — not private claims — underpin the timeline presented in mainstream coverage [2] [4]. Where assertions fall outside the provided reporting — for example, contemporaneous evidence proving the timing of any alleged affair beyond the parties’ later statements — the available sources do not supply corroboration and thus do not resolve competing personal claims [1] [2].