'Rollercoaster' love life of Pete Hegseth: From marrying the high-school sweetheart to cheating scandals

Hegseth has done it again!

Seems like the Defense Secretary of the United States of America is in some kind of repetition roulette!

Pete Hegseth shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a second Signal group chat – yet again – this one, The New York Times reported, on his personal phone and including his wife, lawyer, and brother.

This comes weeks after the Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, claimed he was added to a Signal chat group with high-ranking US security officials, who were discussing US air strikes on Yemen.

As per the NYT report, Hegseth, on a second Signal chat, shared flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen. The information was reportedly sent on March 15. The group included the Trump official's wife, Jennifer Rauchet , his brother, Phil, and a personal lawyer.


Now, although Jennifer Rauchet, Hegseth’s wife, is garnering a lot of attention since this fiasco, now popularly known as Signalgate 2.0 , turns out, isn’t the first wife of the US Defense Secretary. Rauchet isn’t his second wife, even, but the third one.


Take a look at the rollercoaster love life of Pete Hegseth.

Much like his political career, his personal life has also had quite a few ups and downs. From infidelity issues to sexual misconduct allegations – the list ain’t short.


Marriage with Meredith Schwarz:

In 2004, Hegseth married his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, who was his high school girlfriend from Minnesota; they divorced in 2009 after he admitted to five affairs.

Pete and Meredith, who were pupils of the Forest Lake Area High School in the suburbs of Minneapolis, started their fairytale love story from the fences of high school. Pete and Meredith seemed like the perfect high school sweethearts! He played varsity football and basketball, she was on the student council and a nominee for homecoming queen. Both of them were academic all-stars bound for elite schools. While Pete went to Princeton, Meredith was destined for Barnard. They were voted as the pair ‘most likely to marry’ and the yearbook photo featured Hegseth wearing a football jersey with his arms around Schwarz’s waist – straight out of a rom-com movie!

As the classmates’ prediction came true, in 2004, Hegseth married Schwarz at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Minnesota.

However, the high-school-sweethearts’ marriage was short-lived.

In December 2008, Schwarz filed for divorce after Hegseth admitted that he had cheated on her, according to four sources close to the couple; as APM Reports previously revealed that the infidelity was listed as grounds in the couple’s divorce proceedings. As per those sources, Hegseth’s infidelity left Schwarz emotionally and psychologically devastated. One of them told Vanity Fair, “She was gaslighted by him heavily throughout their relationship. As far as everyone else was concerned, they were viewed by many as this all-American power couple that was making big things for themselves.”


Marriage with Samantha Deering:

When Meredith Schwarz filed for divorce, Hegseth was dating Samantha Deering, whom he met while working in Washington, DC, at Vets for Freedom. In 2010, Hegseth married Deering. With Samantha, Pete has three kids.

In August 2017, while still married to Samantha, Hegseth had daughter Gwen, with Fox executive producer Jennifer Rauchet. In September 2017, Deering filed for divorce that took ten months to finalize.


Marriage with Jennifer Rauchet:

After fathering a daughter with Rauchet, Hegseth married her in 2019 at Trump’s golf course in Colts Neck, New Jersey.


A string of failed marriages and a scornful mother:

In 2018, during Hegseth's divorce proceedings from his second wife Samantha, his mother Penelope Hegseth sent him an email criticizing his treatment of women. The email stated: "You are an abuser of women – that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth...It's time for a someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women."

The New York Times published this email in November 2024 after Trump announced his intention to nominate Hegseth to be defense secretary. When interviewed about the email, Penelope Hegseth told the Times she had written it "in anger, with emotion" and had "immediately apologized in a separate email," adding that her previous characterization had "never been true."



Who is Pete Hegseth?


Peter Brian Hegseth is an American television presenter, author, and former Army National Guard officer who is now serving as the Defense Secretary of the US under the Trump 2.0 administration.

A political commentator for Fox News since 2014 and weekend co-host of Fox & Friends from 2017 to 2024, he was previously the executive director of Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America.

Hegseth has been active in conservative and Republican politics since his undergraduate days at Princeton University. As a National guardsman he served at Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2016, he emerged as a supporter of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, and he served as an occasional advisor to Trump throughout the latter's first term as president. Following Hegseth's encouragement, in 2019, Trump pardoned three soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes. Hegseth was considered to lead the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration, but David Shulkin was tapped instead.

On November 12, 2024, Trump announced his intention to nominate Hegseth to serve as US defense secretary. In January this year, Hegseth was confirmed as the US Defense Secretary.