George and Kellyanne Conway — the GOP power couple whose marriage drew intense public curiosity as he became ever more loudly critical of the Trump White House, for which she worked as a senior adviser — are divorcing after 22 years together, the couple confirmed late Saturday.
In a statement posted on both of their Twitter accounts, the Conways described the divorce as “amicable” and said they “cherish the many happy years (and four corgis) we’ve shared, and above all else, our four incredible children, who remain the heartbeat of our family and our top priority.”
George Conway, 59, declined to comment further on the news, first reported by the New York Post. Kellyanne Conway, 56, replied to a Washington Post reporter via text: “be careful with the loose nonfacts and presumptions.”
A veteran Republican pollster, Kellyanne Conway joined Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2016 and rose to campaign manager two months later. Following Trump to the White House, she became one of the most public faces of the administration through frequent TV news appearances — including one in which she defended a Trump spokesman’s false claims of record-breaking inauguration crowds as “alternative facts.”
In 2001, she wed George Conway, a prominent New York lawyer who had represented Paula Jones in her 1994 sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton. He initially supported the Trump campaign and later mulled taking a high-ranking job in the administration.
But he quickly soured on the new president, and in March 2018 he launched a streak of heated criticism against Trump on his Twitter account, which eventually gathered more than a million followers. He also took several prominent writing assignments, publishing a 3,473-word essay that summer rebutting Trump’s assertion that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation was “unconstitutional.” In an October 2019 Atlantic op-ed, he declared Trump unfit for office and questioned his mental health.
“I was angry at Never Trumpers for opposing him and not giving him a chance,” George Conway explained in February 2020. “But their predictions about him turned out to be chillingly correct — indeed, perhaps understated how bad he’d be.”
Eventually, George Conway helped found the Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed by moderate Republicans with the goal of blocking Trump’s 2020 reelection effort.
As public fascination with their marriage grew, some speculated that their political positioning was a bit of an act — a way for the Conways to build a professional bridge across Washington’s partisan gap. Yet tensions clearly began to mount within the family, especially after Claudia, the couple’s teenage daughter, drew attention for viral tweets and TikToks that were critical of her parents and Trump.
In the summer of 2020, Kellyanne Conway said she would step down from her White House role, citing the needs of their children. Her husband at the same time stepped back from his Lincoln Project work.
“We disagree about plenty,” Kellyanne Conway wrote in a statement at the time, “but we are united on what matters most: the kids.”
But in her memoir, “Here’s the Deal,” released in May, she bared her fury and frustration with her husband’s decision to go public with his disdain for Trump.
“For the first time since George and I had gotten serious, I was looking at the possibility that the man who had always had my back might one day stab me in it,” she wrote. “Was that too improbable to consider?”
She added: “I had already said publicly what I’d said privately to George: that his daily deluge of insults-by-tweet against my boss — or, as he put it sometimes, ‘the people in the White House’ — violated our marriage vows to ‘love, honor, and cherish’ each other.” She wrote that as her husband’s social media following grew, “it seemed the flood of reaction and attention he was receiving was magnetic and irresistible.”
People who talked to George Conway at the time said he was angered by what she wrote and that it added more tension to an already rocky relationship.
After first reports of the couple’s separation emerged, Trump weighed in early Saturday morning on Truth Social, writing: “Congratulations to Kellyanne Conway on her DIVORCE from her wacko husband, Mr. Kellyanne Conway. Free at last, she has finally gotten rid of the disgusting albatross around her neck. She is a great person, and will now be free to lead the kind of life that she deserves … and it will be a great life without the extremely unattractive loser by her side!”
“Looking forward to seeing you in New York at E. Jean’s trial next month! Hugs and kisses,” George Conway replied, referencing author E. Jean Carroll’s rape and defamation case against Trump that’s set to go to trial in April.