How 'meat & potatoes' guy JD Vance, from a drug-addicted family, fell in love with elite Indian immigrant Usha Chilukuri

JD Vance and Usha Chilukuri come from vastly different backgrounds. Vance, the son of a drug-addicted mother and raised by his grandmother in a struggling community in Ohio, faced significant challenges according to a TOI report by Avijit Ghosh. Meanwhile, Chilukuri, daughter of Indian immigrants, grew up in California with parents deeply invested in academic and professional success—her father a mechanical engineer from IIT and her mother a trained marine biologist.

Despite their differences, their lives converged at Yale Law School, where they collaborated on a major writing assignment. According to Usha, “We were friends first; I mean, who wouldn’t want to be friends with JD?”

The Journey from Friendship to Marriage

Their paths continued to intertwine, leading them from friendship to love. Vance, in his book Hillbilly Elegy, describes his initial feelings for Usha as intense. He recalls, “I thought about her constantly. One friend described me as ‘heartsick’ and another told me he had never seen me like this.” After discovering Usha was single, he quickly asked her out, leading to a relationship that blossomed steadily.


Navigating personal differences and social challenges, Usha helped JD adapt to environments that he found unfamiliar. At one point, however, Vance’s inability to handle relationship stress tested their bond. He writes about an incident where he stormed out of a hotel room after an unsuccessful interview, only to later apologize sincerely. Reflecting on Usha’s reaction, he said, “She calmly told me through her tears that it was never acceptable to run away.”

A Strong Partnership in Life and Politics

JD and Usha married in 2014, and their intercultural relationship proved to be a supportive foundation for both. Usha shared during her introduction of JD at the Republican National Convention, “That JD and I could meet, let alone fall in love and marry, is testament to this great country.” She described JD, a “meat and potatoes guy,” who learned to embrace her vegetarian diet and even cook Indian food for her mother.

This unique partnership has now brought them to one of the highest platforms in the U.S., as JD, a venture capitalist and author, is set to take on the role of Vice President-elect.