The Shady Second Life Of Bristol Palin

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

When then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ran as the Republican nominee for vice-president in 2008, she aligned herself with a party promoting "abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior." Contrast that with an announcement, delivered during the Republican National Convention, that a 17-year-old, unwed Bristol was five months pregnant with high school sweetheart Levi Johnston, who was 18 at the time.

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child," said Sarah and husband Todd Palin in a statement (via the Los Angeles Times), "which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family."

Just months after baby Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston arrived, Bristol and Levi called off their engagement, and as time passed, the rosy picture of young love and family values portrayed on the campaign trail morphed into a much darker story. In her 2011 memoir, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far, Bristol claims her virginity was "stolen" by Levi during a drunken camp-out with friends, according to excerpts in The Daily Beast. "All of my plans, my promises, and my moral standards had disappeared in one awful night in a series of bad decisions," she writes. The book also details her decision to use birth control and have unprotected sex as well as Levi's alleged reaction to the baby news: "It better be a f**king boy." Those images are a 180-degree shift from the storyline promoted during the campaign.

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