American presidents have a significant place in U.S. history books for their many accomplishments and follies. But behind these "great men in history" are also their wives who became American first ladies. The history of first ladies may not be talked about as much as American presidents but their lives are just as interesting and as complex as their husbands. Some of them accomplished great things while in the White House white others were not as noteworthy, to be honest. And then there were first ladies who were eccentric and just plain quirky. Here are the first ladies who were actually really weird.
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00:00First ladies are expected to be the model wives and mothers of America, but that can
00:05be a tall order to fill.
00:07More than a few first ladies spent their husbands' times in office in unusual ways.
00:11With that in mind, these first ladies were actually really weird people.
00:15Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson were engaged just ten weeks after meeting, but even that
00:20wait was almost too much for Lyndon, who had proposed to her during their first date.
00:25Their honeymoon in Mexico involved so much physical intimacy that when Lady Bird got
00:29back to the States, the first thing she did was see a gynecologist.
00:32Normally a routine examination before marriage, she neglected to make the appointment in the
00:37rush to the altar.
00:38But given her husband's notorious appetite for women, the exam more or less made sure
00:43that she could even handle the future president's constant advances.
00:46But no doctor could help her with her husband's wandering eye.
00:49According to Texas Monthly, Lyndon liked women, and he didn't care if his wife was around
00:54while he liked them.
00:55However, his political career meant he couldn't afford to divorce her, and she knew it.
00:59But that didn't stop Lady Bird from modeling herself on a woman her husband had a decades-long
01:03affair with.
01:04She copied her clothes, makeup, and jewelry, all in the hopes her husband would stay interested
01:09and stop sleeping around.
01:11The weirdest thing about Pat Nixon is that she was married to Richard Nixon.
01:15He was a rude, standoffish individual, whereas everyone seemed to think Pat was the greatest
01:20woman who had ever lived.
01:21As soon as she arrived on the world stage when her husband became vice president in
01:251953, organizations threw awards at her for just being the best.
01:30According to Parade, Pat was named Outstanding Homemaker of the Year in 1953, Mother of the
01:35Year in 1955, and the nation's ideal wife by the Homemakers Forum in 1957.
01:41Pat was so popular that when Richard ran for president in 1960, his campaign pushed the
01:46slogan, Pat for First Lady, and put it on everything from buttons to bumper stickers.
01:51She was also in the top ten of Gallup's yearly poll of most admired men and women in the
01:55world 14 times, including the four years immediately after her husband resigned in disgrace.
02:01Melania Trump was never a very successful model, which is why it's so weird that one
02:06of the few campaigns she did star in seemed to echo her future a little too closely.
02:11In a July 2016 profile, The New York Times reported that a Slovenian fashion label hired
02:17her in the early 1990s to act in a commercial.
02:20It features her exiting a large plane surrounded by bodyguards, driving past adoring crowds,
02:25and signing official-looking legislation.
02:28According to the director, she was playing the part of the first female president of
02:31the United States.
02:33But perhaps the weirdest thing Melania has ever done is apparently trolling her husband
02:38online.
02:39While Donald is obsessed with Twitter, Melania doesn't use her official at-flotus handle
02:43very much.
02:44She only follows six people, both her husband's accounts, the vice president and second lady,
02:49the official White House history accounts, and Barack Obama, her husband's predecessor
02:53whom he absolutely hates.
02:56Eleanor Roosevelt is famous for a lot of things.
02:59But during her lifetime, she was controversial, not just for her actions or political views,
03:03but also because she basically became a supermodel.
03:06It might sound crazy, but according to The Washington Post, advertisers were climbing
03:11over each other to sign her as a model for their brands.
03:14Roosevelt advertised everything from hot dog buns to mattresses.
03:17Congress was none too pleased when they realized what the first lady was getting up to in her
03:21free time.
03:22They even went so far as to launch an inquiry.
03:25But Eleanor shut it down when she revealed that almost all the money she made from her
03:28pitch woman career went to charity.
03:31That made it a little hard to be mad at her, and the inquiry was dropped.
03:35Jackie Kennedy was the perfect first lady.
03:38She was poised and beautiful and comfortable around power.
03:41According to the book Jackie, Janet, and Lee, she was raised this way from the beginning.
03:45She and her sister Lee learned from their mother to be thin and pleasing to men, rich
03:49men in particular.
03:50So Jackie married a future president, while Lee married a Polish prince.
03:54But there were serious rivalries between the two women.
03:58Writer Gore Vidal swears Lee slept with John F. Kennedy repeatedly while he was married
04:02to Jackie, and that the first lady knew about it but was too proper to make a fuss.
04:07After John's death, Jackie let a respectable amount of time pass before marrying Greek
04:11shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
04:13There was just one problem.
04:15Onassis had been Lee's boyfriend for six years.
04:18Lee had introduced the two, and they went behind her back and made a marriage of convenience
04:22for both of them.
04:23Then Jackie didn't even bother telling Lee what was happening.
04:26Instead, it was Onassis who called his girlfriend, told her he'd decided to marry her sister,
04:31and said he'd love it if she came to the wedding.
04:33Lee did come, but the sisters' relationship was completely destroyed.
04:37And Jackie stuck the knife in again at the end, leaving nothing to Lee and her will.
04:41Julia Tyler wasn't John Tyler's first first lady, but when her predecessor died and she
04:46married into the job, she decided she was going to use it to make herself famous.
04:51According to the National First Lady's Library, shortly after her marriage, Julia commissioned
04:55a flattering etching of herself wearing expensive jewels and a fancy dress.
05:00She then had it mass-produced and available for sale so anyone could have the joy of looking
05:04at her.
05:05Tyler was the first known first lady to try and get her name in the papers on her own
05:08merit.
05:09She befriended reporters and made sure there were constant descriptions of events she went
05:13to.
05:14There's even some evidence that she may have handed out these press releases rather than
05:17just waiting and hoping a reporter would cover her.