American Hustle IRL? Meet Nadine Menendez, wife of US senator Bob Menendez: how did the couple become the centre of a bribery case involving Egypt, US$500,000 found in jacket pockets, and gold bars?
- The couple reportedly met in Ihop in Union City in 2018, though other sources say they had known each other before that; Bob proposed by singing a song from The Greatest Showman at Taj Mahal
- The pair have been accused of receiving bribes from Egyptians that include gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz – gifted to Nadine after she ran over a pedestrian in a fatal accident the year before
He nicknamed her “Bubbles” – in reference to her cleavage – and sang her a song from The Greatest Showman when they became engaged. But the love story between US senator Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine – and many more details about them – would soon become public after an indictment that saw them accused of being foreign agents for Egypt. The conspiracy case, it emerged, also involved gold bars in the couple’s home, as well as US$500,000 in the senator’s jacket pockets.
It might sound like a script out of a Hollywood movie, but it’s not. The US senator and his wife have had their lives thrown into the public eye after they were accused of using their influence in exchange for bribes.
Meet the political couple in headlines for their alleged involvement in a bribery operation and claims that they are “agents” for the Egypt government.
Nadine Menendez’s Armenian heritage
Per New York magazine, Nadine was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1967. Both of her parents are Armenian, with some of her family members being killed in the Turkish assault on ethnic Armenians in 1915. In the 70s, Nadine and her family emigrated to the US to start a new life. After her divorce in 2005, Nadine rejoined the dating scene.
It was Nadine and her influence over her then soon-to-be husband that led to the Senate approving a resolution to commemorate the Armenian genocide. Menendez, the senator for New Jersey, was quoted as saying on a US government website that, by passing the resolution, “the Senate finally stood up to confirm history” adding that “to overlook human suffering is not who we are as a people”.