Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is sharing her most poignant relationship advice while giving insight into her own age-gap romance with husband Nicholas Riccio, who is 32 years her senior.
“Forget the haters and follow your heart,” Leavitt, 29, wrote via her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, October 14, when asked by a fan to share her advice for anyone who is dating someone significantly older or younger.
The New Hampshire native continued, “Marrying this man was the best decision I ever made. He’s the absolutely best husband and dad in the world. Everyone gets why we are together when they actually meet him and see us together.”
Leavitt and Riccio, 61, met in 2022 and got engaged the following year. The pair tied the knot in January 2025, going on to welcome son Nico, 2, and daughter Viviana, 5 months.
Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role as White House press secretary, stepped down from the position in August in what she claimed was an effort to better focus on her family.
“Serving as the White House Press Secretary over the past year and a half has been the honor and adventure of a lifetime,” she said in a statement shared via X. “I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for granting me so many extraordinary opportunities, such as working in the West Wing and spending countless hours in the Oval Office, flying around the world and meeting foreign leaders, and traveling across our beautiful country and meeting Americans from all walks of life.”
She added at the time, “Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life, to say the least. The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life.”
Leavitt later revealed that she would be taking on a role at MAGA-friendly Fox News as an on-air contributor starting November 1.
Elsewhere in her Q&A on Wednesday, Leavitt shared why she has opted to conceal her kids’ faces on social media.
“I wish I didn’t feel the need to do this because my kids are so dang cute and I am so proud of them,” she wrote. “But I received a lot of threats and negativity in my job as Press Sec, and I feel it’s the right thing to do to protect their innocence.”
Leavitt continued, “Also, I wonder when they grow up one day, will they want their whole lives already documented on social media? Maybe not. So I will probably wait until they are old enough to have a choice. That’s just how I feel right now.”
