Jan. 20, 2025, was a day that changedthis Trump's life.
No, notDonald Trump, who was sworn in that day for his second, non-consecutive term as president. But his estranged niece,Mary Trump.
The latter Trump, who exposed her family secrets in atell-all 2020 memoirand leaked financial documents to The New York Times that led to aPulitzer Prize-winning investigationinto her uncle's dubious tax schemes, revealed in her Substack that Jan. 20 was a big deal in her life as well. What happened on that day, nearly a year ago led to her getting married in a private ceremony last October.
In aJan. 11 "The Good In Us" Substack post, Trump said she was "presented with an alternative to the shuttered, circumscribed, and lonely life" she'd been living on January 20th of last year, and she took it. Roughly nine months later, she married her "best friend" in a ceremony surrounded by some family and the couple's closest friends.
"I am married not only to the love of my life but to my best friend," Trump wrote in the post that featured a black and white photo of two women holding hands. "Because I opened myself to the possibility that was held out to me almost a year ago, my other relationships have deepened in new and unexpected ways.
"I am happy in a way I never would have dared imagine," she continued.
Mary Trump, 60, a vocal critic of her uncle, Donald, is the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., the president's brother, who died after his battle with alcoholism in 1981.
In 2020, just months before the Election Day that led to her uncle's defeat, Mary Trump published a memoir entitled "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." Trump, a clinical psychologist, recounted her experience in the Trump family and disclosed herself as the source of the Times' investigation that revealed the president's alleged tax fraud.
The news of Trump's nuptials was applauded byE. Jean Carroll, a writer who accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s. The president was found liable forsexually abusing and defamingCarroll.
"MARY! MARY! AMERICA NEEDED SOME JOY! And you and Ronda are giving it to us!!!" Carroll wrote in a comment on the Substack post.
Trump, a lesbian who had been married once before, did not reveal the name of her new wife in the post. Nor did she reveal why she kept her marriage hidden for the last few months, instead hinting there was "more to the story."
But she said the first 11 days into the year "represent an escalation of the horrors we experienced as a country since January 20, 2025, that is as shocking as it is predictable."
And because of that, she wanted to offer a reminder to Americans that there is still hope and light amid the darkness.
And when it's there, "We must always let it in."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mary Trump, president's estranged niece, reveals she recently married
