Inside divide driving a wedge between John Fetterman and his ‘missing’ wife – as his devastating decline is exposed
Senator John Fetterman’s wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, has not been seen on Capitol Hill for months despite having serious concerns over her husband’s health.
Her absence comes after a bombshell report blew the lid off of the closely guarded health history of her 55-year-old Pennsylvania senator husband.
Fetterman had a stroke while running for Senate in May 2022, and has since used an iPhone to translate incoming questions while at work as he continues to suffer from audio-visual impairment.
A New York Magazine report last week, citing former and current Fetterman staffers, detailed how the Democrat has recently appeared despondent at times, while acting ‘manic’ and ‘unhinged’ at others.
It also revealed that, after a March 2023 stint at the Walter Reed hospital near Washington for depression, Fetterman’s doctors raised serious concerns over his lifestyle. ‘He eats fast food multiple times a day’, ‘we do not know if he is taking his meds’, the medical director of the traumatic brain injury and neuropsychiatry unit wrote in an urgent letter.
For her part, Gisele, 43, has historically been known for having a high profile around her husband’s office, especially after he won the 2022 Senate election and was recovering from his stroke. The couple have been married since 2008 and have three children.
But now sources tell the Daily Mail that Gisele hasn’t been seen with the senator at all this year.
‘I haven’t seen her once,’ one Senate staffer said of Gisele’s recent absence on Capitol Hill.
A recent NY Mag article detailed the health struggles Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has been enduring. It also shed light on several fights between the senator and his wife, Gisele
John Fetterman and Wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman. Sources tell Daily Mail that Gisele has not been spotted around the senator’s office as reports of his health have been circulating
Gisele was often spotted around Captiol Hill when her husband was first elected. When interviewed last January by the Daily Mail, Fetterman said his wife was in his office at the time
In an interview with the Daily Mail in January 2024, Fetterman batted off ‘outrageous’ rumors that he and Gisele were separating, insiting they were still closer than ever.
However, this report last week from NY Mag includes details of alleged spats between Fetterman and his wife.
In particular, it seems Gisele – a formerly undocumented immigrant from Brazil, and a vocal progressive – dislikes her husband’s staunch public defense of Isreal.
‘They [Israel] are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this?’ Gisele reportedly asked her husband shortly after Hamas’s October 7 2023 terror attack on Israel, one staffer recalled.
Gisele’s concerns over her stroke-addled husband’s health are also on clear display in the NY Mag profile.
In one bizarre instance, after a Fetterman staffers sent her a text message saying ‘everyone here is feeling alarmed’ over his behavior, Gisele replied: ‘[The doctor had also] said that [Fetterman] was fighting to get access of the Twitter account… Please promise me that he’ll never have access.’
‘I told him I don’t want to talk to him until his blood is tested,’ she added.
In another instance, a former staffer recalled overhearing Gisele on speakerphone saying to Fetterman, ‘Who did I marry? Where is the man I married?’
The NY Mag article sheds light on a car crash Fetterman got into with his wife last year. He allegedly admitted to falling asleep at the wheel after taking a red-eye flight the night before
A recent blow up between the couple came after Fetterman took a last-minute trip to Connecticut in March without telling anyone, staffers say.
‘I took a weekend trip in March to visit the grave site of my friend from grad school who died in 1993 — a trip my staff and family knew about,’ Fetterman insisted to the NY Mag.
But, according to the report, Gisele and senate staffers had no idea where Fetterman was or what he was up to.
Aides were reportedly at a loss for what to tell Gisele when she demanded to know why he was missing one of their kids’ birthdays.
Fetterman and his wife have both denied the NY Mag’s reporting, with the senator slamming the ‘lefty’ outlet and calling the article a ‘hit piece’. But it certainly all adds to the mystery around Gisele’s recent absence from Capitol Hill.
John Fetterman’s current and former staffers have lashed out at their boss, claiming the Pennsylvania Senator is not well and has behave erratically since being treated for depression
US Senator John Fetterman (L) and his wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman arrive for the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner at the Washington Hilton, in Washington, DC, on April 27, 2024
The Democrat has been seen by many as a member of his party made for the Trump era and he has even made overtures toward his political enemies since the inauguration
The Fetterman family together at the White House in 2022
As another Senate staffer told the Daily Mail: ‘I haven’t seen her recently, but I didn’t see her a ton before.’
That source added that Fetterman has recently been spotted sitting in a courtyard outside of his office during the middle of the work day.
‘Not exactly a health thing as much as just an interesting way to spend the workday,’ the staffer said. ‘Just strange to see a senator chilling in the sunny courtyard during the workday.’
‘Usually they are so busy and can barely squeeze [things] in their schedule,’ the staffer added.
Fetterman’s office did not respond to Daily Mail’s request for comment.
