9. The only bachelor president, surviving historical evidence strongly indicates that James Buchanan was a closet homosexual who spent more than a decade in a relationship with a Senator from Alabama
James Buchanan Jr., a lifelong politician, served as a Member of the House of Representatives, Ambassador to Russia and Great Britain, Senator from Pennsylvania, Secretary of State, and finally as the 15th President of the United States from 1857 to 1861. The only American president to never marry, also never producing offspring, questions have persistently been raised regarding Buchanan’s personal life. Whilst some biographers contend that Buchanan was merely asexual or celibate, an increasing consensus opinion among historians proposes that he was, in fact, America’s first homosexual head of state.
Initially engaged to Anne Caroline Coleman in 1819, the engagement was broken off at her request in the same year. Surviving letters between the pair indicate contextual rumors concerning her betrothed, with her father later refusing Buchanan permission to attend her funeral. Retaining a close relationship with William Rufus King, a United States Senator from Alabama and the 13th Vice President, the two men lived together in Washington between 1834 and 1844. Referred to by his contemporaries as “Aunt Fancy” and repeatedly described as Buchanan’s “better half”, there is strong evidence that the pair were engaged in a closet same-sex relationship.