These Are The 8 Hottest First Ladies In American History

This post-Trump world we now live in means that the time is finally right to make this definitive list. Political correctness be damned. Hotness is a subjective term, clearly. It’s physical beauty. It’s intelligence. It’s personality. It’s all the cool stuff you do. It’s a bunch of stuff. Suffice to say, it’s a flame you feel the warmth and radiance of, but cannot see. Without further ado, here it is along with my ratings for them and some germane quotes.

8. Melania Trump (8 / 10)

Melania’s lone skill, as far as we plebeian outsiders know, is raw beauty. A bit one-dimensional perhaps, but she’s pretty good at it. A model since age 16 in her home country of Slovenia (which always sounds like a breed of cat to my ears), she’s appeared on the covers of some pretty powerhouse magazines including Allure, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and GQ. She’s also appeared on one of the swimsuit editions of Sports Illustrated.

“I don’t have a nanny. I have a chef, and I have my assistant, and that’s it. I do it myself. You know, those hours with your child are really important ones, even if it’s just the two of you, being quiet in the car together.”

7. Nancy Reagan (8.2 / 10)

She was a B-level actor just like her husband, Ronald Reagan, which is kind of neat. As First Lady, she was known for bringing a certain glamor back to the White House and also for her interest in high end fashion, harkening back to the days of Jackie Kennedy. She was reputedly a significant influence on the president’s policy and personnel decisions, which is probably a good thing considering Ronald was going senile and would fall asleep during meetings.

“A woman is like a tea bag. She only knows her strength when put in hot water.”

6. Betty Ford (8.6 / 10)

By all accounts, Gerald Ford was a pretty mediocre and transitory president. Betty Ford, on the other hand, was a pretty great First Lady. She was a staunch advocate and passionate campaigner for various hot-button issues that most people would have shied away from including pro-choice rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, substance abuse rehabilitation, and breast cancer awareness. She would even go on to win a Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. Not bad at all.

“The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom for women.”

5. Jackie Kennedy (9 / 10)

Look, there’s no one woman out there who could have stymied JFK’s wanderlust for the opposite sex, but, if anyone could, it would have been Jackie. She was clearly bright (went to George Washington University) and ambitious (rose from the ranks of receptionist to writer / photographer at the Washington Times-Herald à la Peggy Olson from Mad Men).
She also became a veritable fashion icon in her day, often appearing in the then-nascent media spotlight alongside celebrities. Known for her effortless grace and sartorial touch, she embodied what it meant to be chic during her era.

As for her actual time as First Lady? She was an avid patron of the arts who is perhaps best known for helping establish the National Endowment for the Arts and undertaking a full-on restoration of the White House. Apparently, the White House at the time was too drab for her taste and lacking in historical character. She transformed the White House into the living, breathing historical document that it is today.

“The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.”

4. Hillary Clinton (9.1 / 10)

In an alternate universe where people were more rational, she’d be the most powerful person in the world right now and the ultimate glass ceiling shatterer. Presidential losses aside, she has still had an impressive political career and is a pretty bad ass lady in her own right. JD from Yale University, US Senator from New York, Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential nominee. Sure, she can’t use emails properly and is probably not the person you’d most want to take jager bombs with, but that’s okay.

“I did not have textual relations with that server.”

3. Michelle Obama (9.2 / 10)

Barack Obama was a pretty rad president, but, before the whole becoming president thing happened, I’d argue Michelle was actually way radder.

She got accepted into Princeton in the early 1980’s, which is quite the feat for an African-American woman from her humble socioeconomic background. Barack, on the other hand, was smoking weed at some place called Occidental. She then followed that elitist education with an even more elitist one by graduating from Harvard Law School in 1988, just as Barack was starting the very same law degree.

Her professional life would go on to include stints as a lawyer at some fancy corporate law firm, working in the Chicago public sector, and then working as the executive director of the University of Chicago hospitals, where she was making a cool ~275K compared to Barack’s paltry ~150K. Pretty hot.

Also, if this was the “First Ladies with the Most Toned Arms” listicle, she’d definitely be number one.

“The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them.”

2. Abigail Adams (9.3 / 10)

Abigail Adams is technically the second First Lady of the United States. She is sometimes even considered a founder of the United States, which we all know is the greatest country of all time. Pretty hot. She is an interesting figure in that we have an abundance of letters between her and John Adams that paint a portrait of her as quite the intellectual and someone whom the president earnestly sought advice and guidance from.

“Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.”

1. Eleanor Roosevelt (9.4 / 10)

Eleanor Roosevelt was Hillary Clinton before Hillary Clinton. Despite having a brood of six children (how this happened despite her husband being paralyzed is beyond me), she still managed to write her own nationally syndicated weekly column, regularly give press conferences on behalf of her disabled husband, and speak out on various social issues including racial injustice, children’s rights, women’s rights, and global poverty.

With FDR dying in 1945, she claimed her public policy days were over. Psyche! She would go on to become a delegate to the United Nations, even at one point chairing its Human Rights Commission.

“Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.”