Clinton: I rejected Bill’s first two proposals

HILLARY CLINTON said yesterday that she rejected two marriage proposals from her husband, Bill, because she was concerned that his political ambitions might stymie her own aspirations.

“I was terrified about losing my identity and getting lost in the kind of wake of Bill’s force-of-nature personality,” the Democratic presidential front-runner said in an interview with comedian Lena Dunham. The couple met while they were both high-achieving students at Yale University law school, and Mr Clinton first proposed when they were on holiday in England following their graduation.

“He asked me to marry him,” Mrs Clinton recalled. “I said, ‘You know, I can’t say ‘yes’. I can’t do that right now.’”

Mr Clinton persisted, asking again the following year, but was once again rebuffed.

“It was a large part of the ambivalence and the worry that I wouldn’t necessarily know who I was or what I could do if I got married to someone who was going to chart a path that he was incredibly clear about,” she explained. Mrs Clinton accepted the third proposal and, as she had predicted, Mr Clinton’s path led him quickly up the ladder of American politics.

They were married in 1975. He became Attorney General of Arkansas two years later at the age of 30, and the state’s governor two years after that.

“Eventually I said yes,” Mrs Clinton said. “It was a big leap of faith, and I think most marriages are.”