Ronald Reagan married Nancy as a result of she was pregnant, daughter writes | EUROtoday

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Patti Davis, the daughter of late President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, has written in a brand new memoir that her father solely married her mom as a result of she was pregnant.

Ms Davis, 71, writes in Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew that forward of his divorce from actress Jane Wyman, he had “made a pact” along with her to not remarry earlier than her.

Ms Davis provides that Reagan “was not exactly anxious to get married again”.

“Traveling back, you realize that the whole story of your family is bigger, messier, and often more tender than you once believed,” the daughter, who was born six months after her mother and father had been married in 1952, writes.

Wyman and Reagan had three kids throughout their nine-year marriage, one in every of whom died shortly after beginning.

During a dinner on the Hollywood restaurant Chasen’s, Nancy revealed to the long run president that she was two months pregnant, Ms Davis writes, in line with the Daily Mail.

The daughter writes that her father rapidly left the desk to telephone Wyman to inform her he needed to break the pact to marry Nancy earlier than the beginning of their youngster.

They married on 4 March 1952 and Ms Davis was born six months later, on 4 October of that yr. Reagan formally divorced Wyman in June 1949.

Kitty Kelley, Nancy’s biographer, has acknowledged that Reagan dated actress Christine Larson for a yr following his second marriage, saying that he had been “tricked” into the union.

Kelley has additionally claimed that Reagan was with Larson in the course of the beginning of Ms Davis and that Nancy had an affair with Frank Sinatra whereas she was first girl.

The 186-page ebook is written within the type of a letter to her mother and father. Ms Davis writes that her beginning was a flaw in her mom’s “romantic illusion” with the president.

Ms Davis outlines her troublesome relationship along with her mom, however she would nonetheless go on to alter her final title to Nancy’s maiden title – Davis.

The daughter writes that she typically obtained excessive and at instances thought of taking her life, describing house life underneath Nancy’s stern rule as “stiff and strict”. Meanwhile, Reagan is described as a doting father, instructing her to trip horses, fly kites, and have theologic discussions about “the blue waters of heaven”.

“I never stood a chance with you. The intractable war between you and me, Mom, kept brewing often to a boil – it was a dark tide moving beneath us,” she writes to her mom, describing her as chilly with an inclination to fly into “formidable” suits of rage.

“I don’t remember ever walking into our home with a sense of security and a feeling I belonged,” Ms Davis notes.

She provides that her father’s rightwing politics later created a rift between them, writing, “I had more truthful and raw conversations with Lincoln’s ghost than I was able to have with you,” in reference to her stays within the Lincoln bed room within the White House.

Reagan died in 2004 on the age of 93 after a protracted struggle with Alzheimer’s. Nancy handed away from coronary heart failure in 2016. they’re each buried on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew is out on 6 February.