Dr Jill Biden, the First Lady of the United States, has been featured on the cover of the June/July edition of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, marking the first time that a First Lady has appeared on the cover of the 155-year-old magazine.

The June/July edition of the magazine carries a story on Dr Biden’s role as the First Lady of a country in crisis.

Written in Spring this year, the feature sheds light on Dr Biden’s life as a “Senate spouse,” her financial struggles after her first, brief marriage Bill Stevenson, as well as her relationship with President Joe Biden.

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“Even as a Senate spouse, I was working, going to grad school, doing campaign events, raising kids. Showing up matters. That’s the feeling I get. You’re exhausted. You just do it,” Dr Biden is quoted as saying by Harper’s Bazaar about her life prior to becoming the First Lady.

After Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential Election, the events of January 6, the COVID-19 pandemic, and most recently, the war in Ukraine dramatically changed Dr Biden’s life.

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“I try to be a support for Joe because I don’t know how many people are saying to him, ‘That was great. That was brilliant.’ I try to be that person for him. Some days, I see Joe and I’m just like, ‘I don’t know how you’re doing it.’ It’s the pandemic and then it’s the war and then it’s the economy and then it’s the gas prices. You feel like you’re being slammed,” Dr Biden told the magazine, commenting on the challenges of being the First Lady to an embattled President.

A lifelong advocate of women empowerment, Dr Biden also recalled the struggles of her first marriage and urged women to seek independence.

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“I knew I would never, ever put myself in that position again — where I didn’t feel like I had the finances to be on my own, that I had to get the money through a divorce settlement. I drummed that into [my daughter], Ashley: Be independent, be independent. And my granddaughters — you have to be able to stand on your own two feet,” Harper’s Magazine quoted Dr Biden as saying.

The First Lady also went on to share myriad anecdotes about her life in the White House, including her spats with President Biden.

She went on to say that under President Barack Obama’s administration, she would fight with Biden over texts in a bid to avoid the Secret Service hearing them, a practice that that the Bidens have kept up to this date.