Bill Stevenson: Here's What We Know About Jill Biden's Ex-Husband

People are more curious than ever about Joe Biden's personal life, especially when it comes to his relationships with his wife and kids. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, is actually his second wife — he was previously married to another woman, who tragically died along with his daughter in a car crash in 1972. It's also a second marriage for Jill, and unfortunately, her ex-husband, Bill Stevenson, is already throwing a wrench into Joe's bid for the White House. 

Jill and Joe Biden met in 1975, when she was still in college, after his brother, Frank, introduced them, per Vogue. Jill told the outlet all about the couple's adorable meet-cute. "I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts, he came to the door and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought, 'God, this is never going to work, not in a million years,'" Jill recalled. "He was nine years older than I am! But we went out to see A Man and a Woman at the movie theater in Philadelphia, and we really hit it off. When we came home... he shook my hand good night... I went upstairs and called my mother at 1:00 a.m. and said, 'Mom, I finally met a gentleman.'" 

Jill and Joe married just two years later. If Biden was the gentleman, what about her ex, Bill Stevenson? Here's what we know. 

Bill Stevenson claims that he and Dr. Jill Biden helped Joe Biden launch his political career back in 1972. "Jill and I sat in the Bidens' kitchen. We worked on his campaign," he told the Daily Mail. "I gave $10,900 to his first campaign — in cash." 

At the time, Biden was still married to his late wife, but Stevenson thinks that Joe and Jill's romance sparked then. He claims they grew suspiciously close and alleges that a man saw them driving around in a car together. Stevenson said he asked Jill to leave the house. "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," he said. 

Both Jill and Joe Biden deny that they had an affair. Jill tells a different story about her marriage to Stevenson in her book. They tied the knot when she was just 18 years old and she says it quickly fell apart. "We were young, and it didn't take long before we grew in different directions. I tried to make the relationship work. I thought I could will our marriage back to life," she said, per the Daily Mail. 

No matter how they met, the Bidens have been together for more than four decades, so something must be working.

Bill Stevenson has pursued a number of different entrepreneurial endeavors over the years. He founded a horticultural business called Sticky Pots, and he invented a plant "support system" that he sold to Scotts Miracle-Gro, according to the Daily Mail. Before that, he reportedly founded a live music club called the Stone Balloon in Newark, Del., which Rolling Stone once called the "best-kept secret in rock and roll" (via Town Square Delaware). Stevenson played football at the University of Delaware, and he also reportedly won a gold medal for shot put in the National Senior Games. 

In 2018, Stevenson made the news when he suffered a "massive" heart attack in New York City. According to ABC News, he credited two police officers who used a defibrillator for helping to save his life. He has since advocated for defibrillators to be in every police car and restaurant. 

At the time of this writing, he is working on a memoir that he said he began before his health crisis. "I'd already started the book," he told the Daily Mail. "I came back from the dead to finish it." Stevenson has put pen to paper in the past, too. "He authored a book of the early years of The Stone Balloon, which is now sold on Amazon for an astonishing $395," the Daily Mail reported.