What to Know
A photo from the 2026 Winter Olympics is not helping Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, quell the divorce rumors. People have been questioning JD and Usha’s marriage for some time now, to the point that when they announced they’re expecting their fourth child together, some saw it as yet another sign that they could be dealing with marital problems.
So, upon seeing a photo from the U.S. Olympic Delegation Luncheon, people immediately had questions. Because why are JD and Usha standing so far apart?
JD was standing next to two other women instead.
The group of eight that posed for a photo together included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several retired Olympic athletes. Instead of posing for the photo alongside his wife, JD stood between former ice hockey players Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando. Meanwhile, Usha was at the very end of the photo, which made some people think it would be easy for JD to crop her out of the image one day, if needed.
“Why did JD Vance put Usha at the end of the photo?” the PatriotTakes account questioned on X. People shared several theories, like, “He wanted to be surrounded by the blondes,” “it’s his photo op and he wants it to be all about him,” and “so he can cut her out of the photos when they get divorced.” Yikes.
Some even said he appears to “treat her like garbage.”
“Usha means nothing to him,” one person speculated. “Look at his body language.” Others argued it was probably all about “optics” because JD seems “afraid of what the groypers will say.” In the past, JD has come under fire for not doing enough to defend his wife and kids from racist attacks. In particular, white supremacist podcaster Nick Fuentes and his far-right followers, called Groypers, have used racist slurs to attack Usha and called JD a “race traitor.” When asked about this during an interview with UnHerd, JD said, “Let me be clear. Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s–t. That’s my official policy as vice president of the United States.”
He also said “racism is bad,” but largely shrugged off Nick’s influencer, saying he’s just a “podcaster.” JD continued, “Is Nick Fuentes really the problem in this country? He’s a podcaster. He has a dedicated group of young fans, and some of them have been s—-y to my friends and family. Does that annoy me? Of course.” He then went on to talk about people “discriminating against whites in college admissions and jobs.”
Why did JD Vance put Usha at the end of the photo? pic.twitter.com/LKJA9Ux7dk
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) February 8, 2026
When it comes to this particular photo, some argued it might’ve been Usha’s choice.
A lot of people assumed that JD didn’t want to stand next to his wife, but it’s also possible that she wanted to be on the far end of the photo. “Maybe she wanted some distance,” one person wrote. Over the past several months, photos of Usha not wearing her wedding ring have also gone viral on social media. In a December 2025 interview with USA Today, she said, “I wear it when I wear it, and I don’t when I don’t.” She also said she doesn’t really worry about the divorce rumors. “I’d rather just sort of live in my marriage and in the real world and less in kind of the fever dreams that surround it,” she told the publication. “So I mean, it is kind of a family joke, but also not something that I spend very much time thinking about.”
But another photo from the Olympics also went viral this year. In it, influencer Jake Paul is seated between JD and Usha as they watch a women’s ice hockey match. “Why is he sitting between them 😭” one person on Reddit wrote in response to that photo. Someone else almost couldn’t believe it, writing, “This is so so weird! She looks like she wants to get up and leave! Heck, I would too. I could get him even sitting on the right of Vance, but In the middle!”
