Tragic Details About About Nancy Pelosi's Daughter, Alexandra

Despite both of her parents being alive, Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of Nancy Pelosi and Paul Pelosi, told the The Guardian that it feels like she's been through both of her parents' funerals already. In October 2022, the documentary filmmaker first had to process the terrifying attack on her father by David DePape, which required him to be hospitalized and resulted in what Alexandria called "traumatic brain injury for the rest of his life." 

DePape broke into the Pelosis' house and attacked Paul with a hammer while looking for his wife, Nancy. Paul was able to call the police, who intervened, but not before he suffered injuries. According to NBC News, DePape has since been sentenced to life in prison without parole. In a December 2022 interview with Josh Dickerson for "CBS Sunday Morning", Alexandra spoke on the horrific events, saying, "I haven't slept since the night my father was attacked." (via CBS News)

After the incident, Alexandra told The Guardian that she and her mother stayed with Paul in the ICU for a week. "It's been very dark for all of us. We all process it differently," she said. But perhaps just as disturbing as the attack was the way in which several Republican officials reacted, with some even mocking it. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a since-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that described a photo of a hammer and a pair of underwear as a "Paul Pelosi Halloween costume." It's a tragedy that an attack on anyone's life could become fodder for jokes or memes, but it's one that Alexandra will have to live with forever.

As a documentarian, Alexandra Pelosi got to live through a moment in history when she and her teenage son found themselves next to her mother, Nancy Pelosi, during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Alexandra told The Guardian of the terrifying close call, "At some point the security came over and said we're leaving. They [the mob] had already broken the window to come in. The security camera shows that the protesters were two minutes from us but we found out that after." As the angry mob made their way to Nancy's office, Alexandra, her son, and Nancy were whisked away to safety, but scars from the day still linger. She told The Guardian how she struggles to explain the terrifying motives of the angry crowd to her kids, saying, "I still haven't been able to come up with a good answer for Nancy Pelosi's grandchildren about why people want to hang her from a lamp-post."

The following year, Nancy Pelosi stepped down from her position as the Speaker of the House in November 2022, a decision that she told CNN's Anderson Cooper was influenced by the attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi. Reported by NPR, Nancy met the historic moment by saying, "For me the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect." But the finality of the decision rippled down to Alexandra, who likened the retirement of her mother from politics to a funeral. "If you're in politics and you step down, it's like going to your own funeral because you get to read your own obituary," she told The Guardian. Hopefully, with Alexandra's parents out of the spotlight, the entire family can continue to heal.