Jill Biden is breaking her silence in a new memoir about President Joe Biden’s decision to end his 2024 reelection bid, her first public remarks on a key three-week stretch when she held back from discussing her own feelings, according to an interview and remarks described by The Associated Press. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced the book on March 11, setting a June 2 publication date.
In a telephone interview with AP, Jill Biden described the memoir as reflecting on her four years as first lady, and she said writing the book was “somewhat healing.” She added: “It was kind of cathartic for me to write it, and I wrote about all the, you know, sometimes painful — but other times, most of it really beautiful moments that Joe and I shared during his presidency,” AP reported.
AP reported that Jill Biden declined on Tuesday to discuss specific moments from the presidency, including the period that culminated in Joe Biden stepping away from his five-decade political career by dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. In an announcement video shared on Instagram, AP said she told viewers she wants to “set the record straight.”
The AP report said Jill Biden’s memoir is also described by the publisher as a tribute to women who juggle multiple roles. In her remarks to AP, Jill Biden tied the book to her own experience balancing life as a working woman with family responsibilities, saying it is “also a story about my being able to balance life, you know, as a working woman and as a mother, a grandmother, a first lady.”
AP also said that during the four years in the role, Jill Biden taught at a Northern Virginia school while serving as first lady, and that she made history as the first first lady to continue the career she had before entering the White House. Before she became first lady, AP reported, she served as second lady from 2009 to 2017, when Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president, and she currently chairs the Milken Institute’s Women’s Health Network.
For background on Joe Biden’s health, AP said his former office announced in May 2025 that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that spread to his bones. In comments to AP, Jill Biden said receiving the diagnosis was “quite a shock” for her husband, who was 83, and she said doctors told her that because cancer had reached his bones, it meant he would have cancer “all his lifetime,” adding that the doctors said he would “live out his natural life.”
AP reported that Jill Biden said Joe Biden still visits Washington at least once a week for meetings or to give speeches, and she described a familiar dynamic for the couple in retirement, joking that he will probably “drive me crazy till the end of it.” She also said he is receiving treatment.
The publisher’s description of the memoir, as outlined in the AP report, includes the couple’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. AP said Joe Biden was sworn into office on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021, two weeks after a mob of Trump supporters, spurred by false claims about election fraud, stormed the building.
AP further reported that Jill Biden’s account of the first year in office includes her public encouragement around vaccinations and her continued advocacy on issues including military families, education and community colleges, cancer prevention, and women’s health initiatives. It also said the memoir is part of her broader writing career, following her 2019 book “Where the Light Enters,” in which she wrote about meeting Joe Biden and marrying him.