John Fetterman's Wife Breaks Silence After Disappearance Speculation

Senator John Fetterman's wife has broken her silence after her abrupt disappearance from social media sparked speculation about her reasons.

This week, Gisele Barreto Fetterman deleted her accounts on both Instagram and X, formerly Twitter, leading many social media users to speculate that the move was due to her husband going through what has been perceived as something of a political transformation.

Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, was last month accused of throwing Barreto Fetterman under the bus after he spoke about a need to "effectively address" the influx of migrants at the southern border.

Brazilian-born Barreto Fetterman was an undocumented immigrant at one point, who moved to the U.S. with her family at age 7. She got her green card in 2004 and became a U.S. citizen five years later.

Over the past several weeks, Barreto Fetterman's social media accounts have also been the target of a flood of negative comments over her husband's unwavering support of Israel amid the country's ongoing conflict with Hamas.

On Tuesday, X user @schizarella announced in a viral post that "Fetterman's wife Gisele deletes all pictures with him on social media," sharing a screenshot of Barreto Fetterman's now-deleted account on the microblogging platform.

As of press time, the post has been viewed more than 7.5 million times.

Several hours later, the same X user shared in a follow-up post that Barreto Fetterman's Instagram account had also vanished.

Amid discussion about the factors that may or may not have led to her abrupt social media departure, Barreto Fetterman reactivated her X account and shared a message with her more than 220,000 followers.

"I posted several months ago that i would be talking a break from social media," she wrote on Tuesday. "I was bored with it ... i am a Pisces ... it wasn't adding anything to my life .. but leaving social media is somehow more exhausting than having it?!"

"You guys really are terrible, respectfully," she added in a follow-up post.

Newsweek has contacted representatives of Fetterman via email for comment.

On November 17, Barreto Fetterman said in an X post that she was "3 weeks into a social media break that may last another month or forever. PS. treating someone as simply someone's spouse is insulting and minimizing. PSS. did you know male spouses don't get treated this way? PSSS. no more cute animal pics for you."

Shooting down any speculation that she stands at odds with Fetterman over the southern border, Barreto Fetterman spoke out in defense of her husband on January 23.

Fox 5 DC anchor Shomari Stone took to X on January 22 to share coverage of Fetterman's comments on the matter. Stone wrote: "Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., says American dream is threatened by 300,000 illegal immigrants swarming southern border. 'I honestly don't understand why it's controversial to say we need a secure border,' the senator told CNN anchor Jake Tapper."

Tagging Barreto Fetterman, an X user commented: "@giselefetterman has been refreshingly and soberingly honest about initially being undocumented. 'Illegal Immigrant' was a term long invented by politicians. @JohnFetterman statement is cruel. I'm done with him."

The post caught the attention of Barreto Fetterman, who shared a screenshot taken from a Newsweek article of what her husband actually said during his interview with Tapper.

"Friends, this is the actual quote," she stated, adding, in part, that "we all have to all be better than sharing fake news."

The screenshot showed Fetterman telling Tapper on the border: "I think two things can be true at the same time: You can be very supportive of immigration, but we also need to have a secure border.

"We want to provide the American Dream for any migrant, but it seems very difficult when you have 300,000 people showing up encountered at our border to do that. I think we need to do a reset and work together to develop a new comprehensive solution."

Elsewhere in the interview, Fetterman said: "I don't understand why it's it controversial to say we need a secure border. I've been really clear—in fact, that was weaponized against me by Republicans in my race, that I'm very much a strong supporter of immigration. My wife's family, there's an origin story about that."

As conservatives, including Donald Trump Jr., have commended Fetterman for speaking out regarding the border and the Middle East, Fetterman has experienced a dwindling of support among young liberals—more of whom sympathize with Palestine than Israel, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,680 Pennsylvania self-identified registered voters conducted between January 4 and 8.

Only 28 percent of those aged 18-34 have a favorable view of Fetterman, according to the poll. In contrast, 45 percent had an unfavorable view of the senator, with 27 percent saying they hadn't heard enough to answer.

Update 1/31/24, 5:15 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional details and background information.