Sarah Palin was everywhere in the news during John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
She was the Governor of Alaska and was suddenly picked to be McCain’s running mate. Even though they lost to Barack Obama, Palin was still seen as a major influence in Republican politics.
Wikipedia Commons / Gage Skidmore
Sarah Palin, 58, is still active in the Republican party, but lately, the news has focused more on her personal life.
In 2020, after being married for nearly 30 years, Palin announced her divorce from her husband. The details were surprising, and recently, Palin has shared more about the breakup.
Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1964, but her family moved to Alaska when she was just a few months old. She grew up in Wasilla, a small town about 40 miles north of Anchorage.
In high school, Palin was a basketball star and a natural leader, becoming well-known in her school.
“Basketball was a life-changing experience for me. It taught me about setting goals, discipline, teamwork, and success,” Sarah Palin once said.
Sarah met her future husband, Todd Palin, in high school at a basketball game. In August 1988, she eloped with her high school sweetheart. They went to the local courthouse to get married but found out they needed witnesses. They convinced two people from the pioneers’ home across the street to help, and finally, they were able to get married.
According to Sarah Palin, she and Todd eloped because they were both poor at the time and didn’t want their parents to pay for a wedding. She shared this with the Anchorage Daily News in 2008.
Sarah and Todd have five children together: Track Charles James (born in 1989), Bristol Sheeran Marie (born in 1990), Willow Bianca Faye (born in 1994), Piper Indy Grace (born in 2001), and Trig Paxson Van (born in 2008), who has Down Syndrome.
Sarah’s love for sports is reflected in her children’s names. Her daughter Willow is named after the famous female sports journalist, Willow Bay, who covered the NBA. Bristol, her eldest daughter, is named after the town where ESPN is based.
Sarah Palin, who has been a registered Republican since 1982, worked as a journalist and helped run Todd’s family’s commercial fishing business before entering politics in 1992.
With her down-to-earth personality, she charmed many people and gained a lot of support. In 2006, she made history as the first woman and youngest governor of Alaska.
Her husband Todd, who liked to call himself the “First Dude” while Sarah was governor, always supported her. However, according to family friends, Todd didn’t like to brag about Sarah and her administration.
“He was almost embarrassed about it or shy, I guess,” said Scott Davis, one of Todd’s closest friends, in an interview with the New York Times. “It never changed him one bit. It took him a little while to adjust to the attention.”
Todd Palin, who is part Yup’ik Eskimo, has always been very busy. He worked in oil production and was a member of Alaska’s Independence Party from 1995 to 2002. He’s also a four-time champion of the world’s longest snowmobile race, called “Iron Dog.”
The Palin family lived in a large two-story house, about 3,450 square feet, near Lake Lucille in Wasilla. For many years, Sarah and Todd’s marriage was seen as a model relationship. When John McCain chose Sarah as his running mate in 2008, Todd was very supportive and took on more responsibilities with their children.
Sarah Palin described herself as “just your average hockey mom.” However, like all mothers, she had her worries about her children.
Just three days into the Republican presidential campaign, Sarah revealed that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant. This was a big shock for the deeply Christian Palin family.
“Trig was a 16-week-old baby at the time. Bristol in high school, teenage and pregnant. We were just a microcosm of America. We were up there on stage and I just thought ‘Oh man…who’da thunk?’” Sarah Palin said in an interview with DailyMail in 2018.
According to Bristol’s ex-boyfriend, Levi Johnston, Sarah wanted to keep Bristol’s pregnancy a secret and even suggested adopting the baby. “Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret – nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant,” he told Vanity Fair magazine in 2009.
After the news became public, Sarah and Todd released a statement saying they were “proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.”
Now, Bristol is 31 years old, a mother of three, and runs a real estate company in Texas. She has definitely succeeded in life.
Many people saw Sarah and Todd Palin as a happy couple who shared strong Christian values. They had faced many challenges and media storms together, and their three decades of marriage seemed to show their strength and love.
However, just a few days after their 31st wedding anniversary in 2019, Sarah received a divorce notice from Todd via email. After all those years together, finding out this way left Sarah, a mother of five and grandmother of seven, heartbroken.
Sarah said she felt like she “got shot.”
“I found out from an email from an attorney saying that she was hired and that was on June 19; I’ll never forget it… Oh, yeah. It’s not easy to talk about,” she said in an interview with Christian author James Dobson.
For a woman who considered her marriage one of the most important things in her life, it was devastating news.
“I’m sure so many of you either maybe you’ve been through it or you have people whom you love, you’ve witnessed how horrible it is. But I just think, wow, maybe except for the death of a child, I don’t know what could be more … Yeah, it hurts,” the ex-Alaska governor shared.
In September 2019, Todd filed for divorce citing “incompatibility of temperament between the parties such that they find it impossible to live together as husband and wife” as his reasons.
Despite this, Sarah was not ready to give up on her marriage. She wanted to fight, and did everything to repair the cracks.
“We’re going through counseling now, so it’s not over, over,” Sarah told James Dobson in November 2019.
“Attorneys are getting rich off of us and I don’t like that whole system. It makes no sense to me.”
Sarah also had support from her children during this difficult time.
“My kids are cool because they don’t like it and that that helps me. It helps me. They’re not ones to say, “Oh, it takes two to tango.” No, they’re mad because they have been brought up with that teaching that you have made a covenant with God,” she said.
“My parents, they’ve been married for 58 years … everybody’s kind of traditional family sticks together through thick and thin because you made a vow to God that through thick and thin, good and bad, you’re going to make that choice to … jump whatever hurdles are in front of you and you’re going to make it.”
Divorce rumors and scandals had swirled around Sarah and Todd for years, but this time it was the real deal. Their divorce was finalized on March 23, 2020.
Since then, Sarah’s kept a low profile, and didn’t openly comment on her breakup. But in April 2022, she finally bared all regarding her new love and the pain of divorce.
Speaking with the New York Post, Sarah said that the shock and the scars from the split are still evident, as we can all imagine.
“It was the most earth-shattering, bizarre thing I could have ever imagined and it kind of remains so,” she said.
Today, the former spouses have minimal contact. Sometimes they talk, but it’s only because they share custody of Trig, their youngest son.
According to Sarah, her ex-husband now has a new partner who lives in New York City.
“He spends his time with his girlfriend whom he’s had for some time now …,” she said.
“She lives down in the lower 48, so he spends a lot of time down in the lower 48.”
Sarah has also found love again; she’s currently dating former New York Rangers star Ron Duguay. The couple were seen dining outdoors in January 2022, before confirming their romance one month later.
Duguay was a longtime friend of Palin’s, and they fell in love when Sarah asked him if he could show her New York City. In the interview with New York Post, she describes their relationship as “safe and comfortable.”
“Ron is the first person that I’ve ever even talked to about a lot of this personal stuff. So it’s been helpful and refreshing to have Ron to talk to about not just politics, because he’s got more common sense in his little finger than the collective in DC, but just about life,” Sarah explained.
Palin, who is now running for Alaska’s at-large congressional seat, has strong support from her new boyfriend. Duguay has helped her in Alaska and worked alongside side his new love with her campaign.
Going through a public divorce is never easy, especially when children are involved.
But we hope that Sarah can find new energy and live a happy life with her new partner!
