Before 1988, when presidential contender Gary Hart was brought down by the media for a sex scandal, the private lives of politicians and presidents were considered just that: private. Hart dared the press to follow him, and they did - all the way to a pleasure cruise aboard the Monkey Business and a picture of pretty Donna Rice sitting on Hart's lap. Hart’s travails, and this turning point in American media and politics, are detailed in Matt Bai’s surprisingly sympathetic portrait, All the Truth Is Out. In Bai’s telling, Hart, who never held political office again, wasn’t the only loser in the deal. Politicians have been stalked ever since the new era of gossipy, “gotcha” political journalism was born.

Axar.az presents 5 presidential sex scandals of history:

1. John F. Kennedy

The list of extramarital dalliances in John F. Kennedy’s black book is impressive: Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson and Blaze Starr. Frank Sinatra, leader of the Rat Pack and a strong Kennedy supporter, fed the president a constant stream of pretty paramours. But JFK wasn’t only interested in glamorous women. His own White House secretaries, Priscilla Weir and Jill Cowan (referred to as Fiddle and Faddle behind the scenes), were among his bedmates. Most intriguing was his affair with Judith Exner Campbell, a fetching beauty who also happened to be sleeping with mob boss Sam Giancana at the same time. (Conspiracy theorists have zeroed in on this triangle as evidence that the mob was involved in Kennedy’s murder in 1963.) J. Edgar Hoover, the ruthless head of the FBI, used his knowledge of the president’s infidelities to keep JFK in line and make sure that whatever Hoover wanted, Hoover got. Some apologists for Kennedy’s behavior have pointed to the medication JFK took for his Addison’s disease as the cause of his relentless hound-dogging. Despite the fact that the press was certainly aware of his escapades, it remained silent on the subject.

2. Franklin Roosevelt

FDR’s paralysis, caused by the polio he contracted as a young man, was no impediment to his desires. Roosevelt had a lifelong affairwith Lucy Mercer, his wife’s social secretary. The affair probably began in 1916 (before FDR’s polio struck in 1921), while Roosevelt was serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, with Eleanor and their children away for the summer. A couple of years later, Eleanor happened upon some steamy letters between her husband and Lucy. Threatening divorce (which would have ruined Roosevelt politically), Eleanor remained FDR’s partner if not lover. Undaunted, FDR continued his relationship with Mercer until his death in 1945 (Mercer was actually with the president when he died.) Other rumored affairs included his secretary, Missy LeHand, and another with the Crown Princess Marta of Norway. Not to be outdone, Eleanor had her own extracurricular activities to keep her busy, not least of which were probable affairs with Nancy Cook, Marion Dickerman and Lorena Hickok.

3. Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, architect, philosopher, and man of enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson was rumored as a young man to have tried to seduce his best friend’s wife, Betsy Walker. In Paris, as America’s ambassador to France, he had an affair with a married woman, Maria Cosway. Jefferson also shared his bed with his half-black slave, Sally Hemings. Even more scandalous, Hemings was actually the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha who shared the same father as Sally. Jefferson had a long relationship with Hemings, fathering six children and taking her everywhere he went, including Paris (where presumably he was involved with both Cosway and Sally). Four of their children, all said to be of light complexion, survived to adulthood, and were freed by Jefferson. Oddly, Jefferson never granted Sally Hemings her freedom, which was left for Jefferson’s daughter Martha Randolph to grant after her father’s death.

4. Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton certainly had the best-publicized affair of any sitting president.From November 1995 to March of 1997, Clinton had a series of brief sexual encounters with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The incidents took place in or near the Oval Office. (Shades of Warren Harding and Nan Britton!) Clinton was, of course, married to First Lady Hillary Clinton at the time.The affair became public in 1998 thanks to the unrelated case of Paula Jones, who was suing Clinton for sexual harrassment while he was governor of Arkansas. During a deposition in that case, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky; his denial, among other things, led to Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice. (It also led to the 453-page Kenneth Starr report explicitly detailing Clinton’s meetings with Lewinsky — a landmark document in the history of presidential peccadilloes.) Bill Clinton was acquitted, but not before the scandal had dominated public discussion for more than a year. For a full history of the case, see the Washington Post’s extensive report titled Clinton Accused.

5. François Hollande

Not many would have imagined the president nicknamed “flamby” would have ended up embroiled in a sex scandal that made global news. But that’s exactly what happened in January 2014, when Closer magazine revealed that François Hollande had been having a secret affair behind the back of partner Valerie Trierweiler with actress Julie Gayet. The publication of images showing Hollande heading off to meet Gayet on the back of a scooter effectively brought to an abrupt end the longstanding notion that the president’s private life was off limits for the media. Despite Hollande batting away questions about his love life the scandal was not quickly forgotten with Trierweiler releasing a tell-all memoire sarcastically titled “Thank You for this moment”, which to the dismay of the president is to be made into a film.