Karine Jean-Pierre shared in a heartbreaking essay this week that she had a “second full-time job” while serving as White House press secretary: caring for her mother, who has cancer.
She wrote in Vanity Fair that she visited her mom in New York every weekend for 18 months while maintaining a secret she kept from even her workmates.
“If I were to share the news of my mother’s diagnosis or any other issues in my personal life, it would be seen as an excuse,” she wrote. “Society doesn’t allow women of color to be vulnerable at work.”
One of her few confidants was an understanding Joe Biden despite a plea from her mother not to tell anyone, including the president.
Her mother was diagnosed with stage 2 colon cancer sometime after Jean-Pierre had returned from a trip to Poland in early 2023 with Biden, who also made a surprise visit to Ukraine, according to the essay.
“From behind the lectern in the briefing room, every day, I faced the press, the American people, and the world,” she wrote. “And every day, I kept my personal life hidden. In fact, it won’t be until reading this that the people I have worked 16-hour days with, traveled across continents with, will learn that for almost two years, I have been silently working a second full-time job, which is navigating my mother’s care.”
Jean-Pierre relayed that she would commute to New York in oversized sunglasses and a mask to conceal her identity to see her mom. She’d still make it back to D.C. for a few hours of sleep before arriving at the White House at 7:30 a.m. on Mondays. “But I was losing my grip,” she confided. “I told my mom I wanted to move to New York so I could help her full-time. ‘You are not quitting your job,’ she said.”
Jean-Pierre’s last day as press secretary was on Monday, Biden’s final day in office. In an entry on her personal X account, she wrote with a photo of herself, the president and first lady Jill Biden, “Serving in this role for this Administration and this President has truly been the honor of a lifetime.”
She reported that her mother finished treatment about a year ago, marking the occasion with the ring of a bell at a clinic in New York.
HuffPost has reached out to Jean-Pierre for comment.
