Laura Ingraham, born in 1963 in working-class Glastonbury, Connecticut, rose from modest roots to become a prominent conservative voice in American media. The youngest of four children, she was raised by a WWII veteran father and a school-worker mother. After graduating from Dartmouth—where she became the first female editor-in-chief of the conservative Dartmouth Review—she worked in the Reagan White House and later earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. Prestigious clerkships, including one with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, followed, but her assertive nature led her away from corporate law and toward broadcasting. Ingraham gained media attention during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and became known as a sharp-tongued conservative “pundette.”

Her media career flourished with the launch of The Laura Ingraham Show in 2001 and, later, The Ingraham Angle on Fox News in 2017, which became one of cable’s top-rated shows. Ingraham has written several bestsellers and co-founded the conservative website LifeZette. Her personal life, often in the spotlight, includes past relationships with figures across the political spectrum and a 2005 battle with breast cancer, which ended in recovery. Though she never married, Ingraham adopted three children—Maria from Guatemala and Dmitri and Nikolai from Russia—whom she raises in Washington, D.C. Balancing motherhood with a high-profile media career, she has carved out a path defined by strong conservative values, legal and political expertise, and resilience in the face of controversy and personal health challenges.