Ashley Biden | |
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![]() Biden in 2016 | |
Born | Ashley Blazer Biden June 8, 1981 Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. |
Education | Tulane University (BA) University of Pennsylvania (MSW) |
Occupations |
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Organisation | Livelihood |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | |
Parents | |
Family | Biden family |
Ashley Blazer Biden (born June 8, 1981) is an American social worker, activist, and fashion designer. She served as the executive director of the Delaware Center for Justice from 2014 to 2019. Before her administrative role at the center, Biden worked in the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families. She founded the fashion company Livelihood, which partners with the online retailer Gilt Groupe to raise money for community programs focused on eliminating income inequality in the United States, launching it at New York Fashion Week in 2017. Biden's parents are former U.S. President Joe Biden and former U.S. First Lady Jill Biden.
Ashley Blazer Biden was born on June 8, 1981, in Wilmington, Delaware, [1] [2] to Jill Biden, a teacher, and Joe Biden, a U.S. senator. [3] She is the half-sister of Beau Biden, Hunter Biden and Naomi Biden, her father's children from his first marriage to Neilia Hunter. [4] [5] Biden is a great-great-granddaughter of Edward Francis Blewitt. [6] She is of English, French and Irish descent on her father's side and English, Scottish and Italian descent on her mother's side. [7] [8] [9]
Biden was raised in the Catholic faith and was baptized at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. [10] [11] During her childhood, her father served as a United States Senator from Delaware and her mother worked as an educator. [12] [13]
Biden attended Wilmington Friends School, a private school run by the Religious Society of Friends in Wilmington. [14] [13] [15] She was on her school's lacrosse and field hockey teams. [16] When Biden was in elementary school, she discovered that the cosmetics company Bonne Bell tested its products on animals. She wrote a letter to the company asking them to change their policy on animal testing. [17] She later got involved in dolphin conservation, inspiring her father to work with Congresswoman Barbara Boxer to write and pass the 1990 Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act. [12] Biden made an appearance before members of the United States Congress to lobby for the legislation. [17]
She graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, in 1999. [18]
Biden studied cultural anthropology at Tulane University. [3] During her first year of college, she worked at Girls Incorporated, now Kingswood Academy, as a camp counselor. [19] She also interned at a summer program at Georgetown University, working with youth from Anacostia. [19] After college, Biden worked as a waitress at a pizza shop in Wilmington for a few months before starting her career in social work. [13] She moved to Kensington, Philadelphia, and started a job as a clinical support specialist at the Northwestern Human Services Children's Reach Clinic, assisting youth and their families with accessing resources and working directly with psychiatrists and therapists. [19] [13] She obtained a master's of social work degree from University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice in 2010. [15] [17] She was one of twelve graduates who received the John Hope Franklin Combating American Racism Award. [20]
Biden is a social justice activist and social worker who has worked extensively in Delaware. [16] She served at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families for 15 years, creating programs for youth in juvenile justice, foster care, and mental health. [17] [3] In 2008 she was listed in Delaware Today's "40 People to Watch" for her work in the department. [21] Later, she joined the Delaware Center for Justice, focusing on criminal justice reform and establishing programs on public education, adult victim services, gun violence, and more. She also implemented a program called SWAGG to combat violent crimes and gang activity among youth.
In 2014, Biden criticized the death penalty, stating that it is not cost effective and wastes resources that could go towards victim services and crime prevention. [19]
She founded the Young@Art program that provides resources and outlets for students to create artwork while they are detained in detention facilities, and then sells the art in the community. [19] Half of the proceeds of the art go directly to the artists, and the other half goes into funding the program to buy art supplies and to pay the wages of youth who work at the community art shows. [19] Through the program, Biden also teaches the students business and financial literacy skills. [19]
In 2017, Biden launched the Livelihood Collection, an ethical fashion clothing brand, at Spring Place in TriBeCa during New York Fashion Week. [22] [17] [23] [24] The launch event was attended by Biden's parents and celebrities including Olivia Palermo and Christian Siriano. [25] [26] The brand collaborated with Gilt Groupe and Aubrey Plaza to raise $30,000 for the Delaware Community Foundation. [17] [27] [28] Livelihood's logo, an arrow piercing through the letters "LH", was inspired by Biden's half-brother Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. [29] [30] Biden stated that "[Beau] was my bow. His cancer brought me to my knees. I had no choice but to shoot forward, keep going, keep aiming at my own dreams." [29]
Biden created the brand to help combat income inequality and racial inequality in the United States. [17] [12] All the proceeds from the brand launch at New York Fashion Week were allocated to programs for communities in need. [31] [32] [33] Ten percent of the brand's continued sales are donated to community organizations in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and the Riverside in Wilmington. [29] Livelihood's products are made with American-sourced organic cotton and are manufactured in the United States. [34] [35] She decided to design hoodies due to their connection to the Labor Movement, and their symbolic significance toward social justice movements. [34] [36] The brand's website provides information about civic engagement and economic justice. [34] [35]
Along with Colleen Atwood, Barbara Tfank, Rachel Zoe, Bibhu Mohapatra, Betsey Johnson, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Anna Sui, Paul Tazewell, and other designers and fashion houses, Biden designed outfits for 12-inch vinyl dolls of the Peanuts characters Snoopy and Belle for the 2017 Snoopy and Belle in Fashion exhibition. [37] [38] [39] The exhibition kicked off on September 7, 2017, at Brookfield Place in Manhattan. [40] [41] [42] It toured in San Diego, Los Angeles, and several other cities throughout the United States before closing on October 1, 2017. [37]
In June 2020, Biden designed the uniforms for the staff at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., as an offshoot of her Livelihood Collection [29] [43] [44] The uniforms were unveiled at a private launch party. [43] The hotel donated $15,000 to Livelihood. [29] [43]
In August 2020, Biden spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention before her father accepted the 2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination. [45] [46] [47] On August 6, Biden hosted an organizing event for Wisconsin Women for Biden to discuss the Women's Agenda, released by her father's campaign, and bring awareness to women's issues in the 2020 presidential election. [48]
In 2010, she began dating Howard Krein, a plastic surgeon and otolaryngologist, after her brother Beau introduced them. [49] They married in a Catholic-Jewish interfaith ceremony at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in 2012. [17] [3] [50] Krein works at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and as an assistant professor of facial, plastic, and reconstructive surgery at Thomas Jefferson University. [51]
Biden is a practicing Catholic. [52] She joined her husband, father, and brother in a private audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican in 2016. [53] [54]
In 2020, Biden's personal diary was stolen and sold to the far-right activist group Project Veritas. [55] Two Florida residents admitted in federal court in 2022 to having stolen the diary as well as other personal items from Biden, transporting the items across state lines, and selling them to Project Veritas. [56] In early April 2024, Aimee Harris was sentenced to a month in prison, starting in July, and three months of home confinement; her co-defendant, Robert Kurlander, would be sentenced in the future. [57] [58]
An often circulated page purported to be from the diary, which chronicled its author's addiction recovery in intimate detail, makes reference to sexual trauma and poses questions in search of an explanation for being "hyper-sexualized @ a young age." Along with mentions of not liking to visit a certain family's house, "being sexualized" with a female friend, and "having sex with friends @ a young age," the author noted taking "showers with my dad (probably not appropriate)." [59]
Biden recognized that the diary was hers but added that her writings on it had been "constantly distorted and manipulated". [60]
Wilmington station, also known as the Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Railroad Station, is a passenger rail station in Wilmington, Delaware. It serves nine Amtrak train routes and is part of the Northeast Corridor. It also serves SEPTA Regional Rail commuter trains on the Wilmington/Newark Line as well as DART First State local buses and Greyhound Lines intercity buses.
Christopher Andrew Coons is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2010 as the senior United States senator from Delaware. A member of the Democratic Party, Coons served as the county executive of New Castle County from 2005 to 2010.
Wilmington Friends School is a private Preschool-12 school in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, United States, near Wilmington. It is affiliated with the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers.
Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III was an American politician, lawyer, and officer in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps from Wilmington, Delaware. He was the eldest child of 46th U.S. president, Joe Biden and Neilia Hunter Biden, served as the 44th attorney general of Delaware from 2007 to 2015, and was a major in the Delaware Army National Guard in the Iraq War. He died of glioblastoma at the age of 46 in 2015, at which time he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of Delaware in the 2016 gubernatorial election. A portion of the 21st Century Cures Act was named the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot initiative after him.
Snoopy is an anthropomorphic beagle in the comic strip Peanuts by American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. He also appears in all of the Peanuts films and television specials. Since his debut on October 4, 1950, Snoopy has become one of the most recognizable and iconic characters in the comic strip and is considered more famous than Charlie Brown in some countries. The original drawings of Snoopy were inspired by Spike, one of Schulz's childhood dogs.
Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden is an American educator who served as the first lady of the United States from 2021 to 2025 as the wife of President Joe Biden. She previously served as second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her husband was vice president. Since 2009, she has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College. She is believed to be the first wife of a vice president or president to hold a salaried job during the majority of her husband's tenure.
Robert Hunter Biden is an American attorney and businessman. He is the second son of former president Joe Biden and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was a founding board member of BHR Partners, a Chinese investment company, in 2013, and later served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. He has worked as a lobbyist and legal representative for lobbying firms, a hedge fund principal, and a venture capital and private equity fund investor.
The family of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, includes members prominent in law, education, activism and politics. Biden's immediate family was the first family of the United States from 2021 to 2025. They were also the second family of the United States from 2009 to 2017 during Biden's vice presidency under Barack Obama. Biden's family is mostly descended from the British Isles, with most of their ancestors coming from Ireland and England, and a smaller number descending from the French.
Christine Therese O'Donnell is an American conservative activist in the Tea Party movement best known for her 2010 campaign for the United States Senate seat from Delaware vacated by Joe Biden.
The 1972 United States Senate election in Delaware was held November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican Senator J. Caleb Boggs ran for a third term in the United States Senate. Boggs faced off against Democrat Joe Biden, a New Castle County Councilman. Though Boggs was expected to easily win a third term, Biden narrowly defeated the incumbent on election day, even while fellow Democrat George McGovern lost Delaware by 20.4% in the concurrent presidential election. Biden's victory margin of 3,162 votes made this the closest U.S. Senate election of the year.
Sarah Elizabeth McBride is an American activist and politician who is the U.S. representative for Delaware's at-large congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the Delaware Senate from January 2021 to January 2025, representing the state's 1st senate district. Prior, she was the national press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign from 2016 to 2021. McBride is the nation's highest ranking openly transgender elected official and the first openly transgender member of the United States Congress.
Lisa LaTrelle Blunt Rochester is an American politician serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from Delaware. From 2017 to 2025, she served as the U.S. representative for Delaware's at-large congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the first woman, and first African American, to represent Delaware in both chambers of Congress.
Neilia Hunter Biden was an American teacher. She was the first wife of Joe Biden, who would later become the 46th president of the United States. She died in a 1972 car crash with their one-year-old daughter, Naomi; their two sons, Beau and Hunter, were injured but survived the incident. Her death occurred six weeks after her husband's election to the U.S. Senate.
Valerie Biden Owens is an American political strategist, campaign manager and former educator. She is the younger sister of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States. In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated her as alternate representative of the United States to the 71st Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Melissa Batya Cohen Biden is a South African‐American activist and documentary filmmaker. She is married to Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden.
Howard David Krein is an American otolaryngologist, plastic surgeon, and business executive. He is the husband of Ashley Biden, the daughter of U.S. president Joe Biden. He is a professor of otolaryngology at Thomas Jefferson University and is a founding partner and co-director of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's Facial Aesthetic and Reconstructive Center. Krein is the chief medical officer at StartUp Health, a venture capital and health technology firm. He served on the Biden Cancer Initiative's board of directors from 2017 to 2019. Krein advised the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign on its COVID-19 pandemic response in an unofficial role.
"Buy a shotgun" is a phrase spoken by then Vice-President of the United States Joe Biden during a video question and answer session hosted by Parents Magazine in 2013. During the session, Biden questioned the utility of a semi-automatic rifle as a home defense weapon, suggesting a shotgun was more appropriate. He went on to explain that he owned two shotguns and had advised the Second Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, to use one of them to "fire two blasts" should she feel threatened by someone or something. The advice later became a subject of interest in social media and popular culture.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the 46th president of the United States, was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, Biden has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James.
Hallie K. Biden is an American school counselor, non-profit executive, and member of the Biden family. She worked as a school counselor at the Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware and at Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware. In 2002, she married Beau Biden, a son of U.S. President Joe Biden and Neilia Hunter Biden. They lived in Wilmington while her husband served as the Attorney General of Delaware.