Joe Biden and his wife Jill have lied to the world for more than 40 years about how they started dating — they actually had an affair that...
Joe Biden and his wife Jill have lied to the world for more than 40 years about how they started dating — they actually had an affair that broke up her first marriage, her first husband claims.
And the whole story the Bidens tell about how the presidential candidate fell in love with Jill after a blind date is completely made up, Bill Stevenson told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
Now Stevenson is about to publish a book that he says will blow the lid off the sham story.
'I don't want to hurt anyone,' Stevenson, 72, said at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, the town Biden has called home for half a century. 'But facts are facts and what happened, happened.'
Joe Biden and his wife Jill have lied to the world for more than 40 years about how they started dating — they actually had an affair that broke up her first marriage, her first husband claims
The way the Bidens tell their story, Joe saw a picture of Jill in March 1975 — after her marriage crashed — and they went on a date and have been together since
But her ex-husband Bill Stevenson told DailyMail.com that their story about how the presidential candidate fell in love with Jill after a blind date is made up
Stevenson is keeping the title of his book close to his chest.
He said he has not yet decided whether to publish before the election or after. 'It's ready to go,' he said. 'They can print 30,000 copies in 10 days.
'I genuinely don't want to harm Jill's chances of becoming First Lady. She would make an excellent First Lady — but this is my story.
'It's not a bitter book — I'm not bitter because, if it wasn't for my divorce, I would never have met my wife Linda and she's the greatest thing in my life — but it does have facts in it that aren't pleasant to Jill and Joe.
'People ask me how I can go back 40 years, but I am not, I'm going back 72 years to tell my life story,' added Stevenson, who founded The Stone Balloon, a famed live music club near the University of Delaware.
Rolling Stone once called it 'the best kept secret in rock and roll.' Some of the biggest names in music including the Allman Brothers, Metallica, Ray Charles, Run DMC, The Dave Matthews Band, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt and Hootie and the Blowfish played there during its 30-plus year history.
'The book is about 300 pages long and Jill only takes up about 80 of them,' Stevenson said.
Stevenson married Jill Jacobs in 1970. 'It was February, I believe it was the 7th,' he told DailyMail.com.
Two years later, he said, the couple were working on then-New Castle County Councilman Biden's first campaign for the Senate.
At the time Biden was married to his first wife Neilia who died along with their one-year-old daughter Naomi in a car crash between the election and Biden taking his Senate seat.
At the time Biden was married to his first wife Neilia who died along with their one-year-old daughter Naomi in a car crash between the election and Biden taking his Senate seat. Pictured: Biden, with both of his sons during an appearance at the Democratic state in summer of 1972. At center is his wife Neilia, who was killed in an auto crash that December
Pictured: The remains of the car in which Biden's first wife and daughter were killed. Neilia Biden and her daughter were killed when the family's station wagon was hit broadside by a flat-bed tractor-trailer on highway
'Jill and I sat in the Bidens' kitchen,' said Stevenson, who describes himself as a liberal Republican, although he says he voted for Barack Obama and Biden in both 2008 and 2012. 'We worked on his campaign.
'I gave $10,900 to his first campaign — in cash.'
Stevenson — who appeared with Biden on Delaware Today's 2012 list of the 50 most influential people from the state — said he had originally wanted to work for sitting Republican Senator Caleb Boggs, who was expected to win re-election easily.
'But I had a disagreement with Boggs over corruption in Delaware and he told me: 'Get out of my office. Go work for that joke Biden,' who was then at only about 20 percent in the polls.'
Biden eventually eked out victory by just over 3,000 votes — 1.4 percent — running a campaign juxtaposing his youth and energy with 63-year-old Boggs, who admitted he didn't want to run for a third term and only did so because President Richard Nixon pleaded with him.
Biden, just 29 on election day, became the sixth-youngest US Senator in history.
Stevenson said he first suspected Biden and Jill were having an affair in August 1974. He was then 26, Jill was 23 and Joe was 31.
'I know exactly when it was,' he said. 'Bruce Springsteen was going to play at The Stone Balloon and I had to go to Northern New Jersey to pay him in advance.
'I asked Jill to go with me and she said no — she had things to do, she had to look after Joe's kids, Beau and Hunter. It was kind of a big deal to go meet Springsteen. I had no idea she and Joe were that kind of friendly.
'Then one of her best friends told me she thought Joe and Jill were getting a little too close. I was surprised that she came to me.'
Stevenson married Jill Jacobs in 1970. 'It was February, I believe it was the 7th,' he told DailyMail.com. Two years later, he said, the couple were working on then-New Castle County Councilman Biden's first campaign for the Senate. 'Jill and I sat in the Bidens' kitchen,' said Stevenson. 'We worked on his campaign'
Stevenson said he first suspected Biden and Jill were having an affair in August 1974. He was then 26, Jill was 23 and Joe was 31. 'Then one of her best friends told me she thought Joe and Jill were getting a little too close. I was surprised that she came to me.' Pictured: Jill and Joe in 1987
Stevenson, who founded The Stone Balloon (pictured), a famed live music club near the University of Delaware. Rolling Stone once called it 'the best kept secret in rock and roll.' Some of the biggest names in music including the Allman Brothers, Metallica, Ray Charles, Run DMC, The Dave Matthews Band, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt and Hootie and the Blowfish played there during its 30-plus year history
That October he got confirmation. 'I was at work and a guy came in and asked: 'Do you own a brown Corvette?' I said yes, it's my wife's car.
'He said back in May it had crunched his bumper and they told him to get an estimate and he never heard back from them.
'I said: 'Wait a minute. Who is they?' And he said: 'Funnily enough, Senator Biden was driving.'
That was it as far as Stevenson was concerned.
'I asked Jill to leave the house, which she did. Her father was begging me to take her back when he found out what was going on. He asked me to give her a second chance, but I wasn't interested.
'I considered Joe a friend. I'm not surprised he fell in love with Jill. Everyone who meets Jill falls in love with her immediately. It's hard not to.'
I said: 'Wait a minute. Who is they?' And he said: 'Funnily enough, Senator Biden was driving.
But the way the Bidens tell their love story, Joe saw a picture of Jill in March 1975 — after her marriage had crashed.
She was in an advertisement for local parks that he saw while passing through Wilmington Airport with his brother Frank. He told Frank that was the kind of girl he would like to date and Frank said: 'Why don't you then? I know her,' and passed on her number.
In her 2019 autobiography Where The Light Enters, Jill wrote that Joe called her and asked her out. She said she already had a date, but he persisted because he was only in town for one night and she relented.
They went to Philadelphia to see the French movie, A Man And A Woman, ironically about a widowed man falling in love, and then went out to dinner.
Despite him saying he was only in town for a single night, the couple went out the next two nights as well, she wrote.
The New York Times told a slightly different story. It said he didn't know his date was the 'drop-dead gorgeous' woman he had been admiring earlier until he picked her up.
Jill and Joe Biden married at the Chapel of The United Nations in New York in June 1977.
That October he got confirmation. 'I was at work and a guy came in and asked: ''Do you own a brown Corvette?'' I said yes, it's my wife's car. He said back in May it had crunched his bumper and they told him to get an estimate and he never heard back from them. I said: ''Wait a minute. Who is they?'' And he said: ''Funnily enough, Senator Biden was driving.'''
Stevenson first met Jill in August 1969. 'I was leaving for Woodstock the following day,' he said. I was at a car wash and she and her friend came over to admire my 1968 Z28 Chevy Camaro. It was yellow with black stripes, all the rage at the time.
'I was going to my friend's birthday party that night, so I invited them along. There were four good looking girls in that apartment and I thought the more the merrier. The rest is history.'
They married the following year when Jill was only 18. In her book, she described her first husband as 'charismatic and entrepreneurial,' – but did not name him. She said her marriage soon fell apart.
'We were young, and it didn't take long before we grew in different directions,' she wrote.
'I tried to make the relationship work. I thought I could will our marriage back to life. But I had to separate what I thought my family should be from the reality of what this relationship was.
He added: 'I genuinely don't want to harm Jill's chances of becoming First Lady. She would make an excellent First Lady — but this is my story'
'Before long, I began to see that the breaks were beyond repair,' she added. I wouldn't settle for a counterfeit love. Like a broken spell, the truth of the reality struck me suddenly: I was going to get divorced.'
Stevenson has led a colorful life. He played defensive end for the University of Delaware football team before opening The Stone Balloon.
He was at Studio 54 in New York with Andy Warhol and Lisa Minnelli and met some of the biggest names in rock through his club. He is a multiple gold medal winner at shot put in the National Senior Games.
He also founded a horticultural company called Sticky Pots and invented the SuperStake, a plant support system that he recently sold to Scotts Miracle-Gro. 'They sold a million SuperStakes in Walmart alone last year,' he said.
He hit the headlines himself when he had a heart attack on the streets of Manhattan in 2018. He died for six minutes before he was brought back to life by NYPD officers, ABC News reported.
Since then he has led a campaign to get defibrillators into police cars throughout the country.
'I'd already started the book,' he said. 'I came back from the dead to finish it.'
This isn't the first book that Stevenson has written. He authored a book of the early years of The Stone Balloon, which is now sold on Amazon for an astonishing $395.
'You'll never see that in the $1.99 bin at Barnes & Noble like you see Joe Biden's books,' he quipped.