Hillary Clinton Admits Staying Married To Bill After Cheating Scandal Was Gutsiest Thing She’s Ever Done

Hillary Clinton revealed that running for president wasn’t the only ‘gutsy’ thing she’s done in her life. Standing by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, after he cheated took a lot, too.

Hillary Clinton rarely opens up about her marriage, but she had no qualms about doing so in an October 1 interview with Good Morning America. Hillary, 71, who was on the morning show with her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to promote their new book, The Gutsy Book of Women, was asked about the gutsiest thing she’s ever done. She didn’t pause before answering, “Personally, make the decision to stay in my marriage. Publicly, politically, run for president. And keep going. Just get up every day and keep going.” Her honesty clearly caught her daughter off guard, because when she was asked the same question, she said, “Oh, goodness, I think I’m so overwhelmed by my mother’s answer that I’m a bit out of words. And I’m just so proud to be her daughter.”

The two time Democratic presidential candidate, former Senator, and Secretary of State has been married to former President Bill Clinton for nearly 44 years. Their marriage was tested during his second term as president, when it was revealed that he was having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. After lying about the affair, the president was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, and subsequently impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998. Two months later, the Senate acquitted him of all charges and he served out the rest of his term. Though the scandal legally ended, the damage to Bill and Hillary’s relationship persisted. She was criticized for standing by him, criticized for not leaving, and mocked to this day by trolls who said she “couldn’t satisfy” her husband. That included digs by now-President Donald Trump while she was running against him in the 2016 general election, nearly 20 years after the fact.

Hillary did write about the scandal in her 2003 memoir, Living History. “I didn’t know whether our marriage could — or should — survive such a stinging betrayal, but I knew I had to work through my feelings carefully, on my own timetable.” She said that at the time, staying with her husband was one of the most difficult decisions I have made in my life.”

Hillary was focused more on Donald Trump during another interview the day prior on The Late Show. Host Stephen Colbert asked her, “How many times when you were secretary of state did you have to say to Barack Obama: ‘You can’t extort foreign countries’?” She answered, “Yeah…that never happened.”