Who Is Paula Broadwell, David Petraeus's Alleged Mistress?

Much has been made of the recent discovery that former CIA director and four-star general David Petraeus, 60, had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Broadwell, 40, who co-wrote All In: The Education of General Petraeus with Vernon Loeb of the Washington Post, was found to not only be writing about the subject of her book, but allegedly sleeping with him, too, after the FBI tapped into Petraeus’s email account when another woman who is friends with the general, Jill Kelley, said Broadwell had been threatening her over email.

Raised in North Dakota, Broadwell was valedictorian of her high school, homecoming queen and a star athlete (earning all-state honors in basketball). She attended West Point, like Petraeus, and received the top-ranking for fitness among women. She then served extensively in the U.S. Army reserves and worked in military intelligence.

Broadwell was a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2006 when she met Petraeus. Petraeus served as a mentor to Broadwell, who was working on her dissertation about Petraeus’ time in command. In writing the biography, Broadwell spent a year with Petraeus in Afghanistan. Broadwell appeared to have been infatuated with the general beyond a professional level, prompting some to think she "was in love with him" according to ABC News.

She now lives in Charlotte, N.C., and is currently a research assistant at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership, as well as a a Ph.D. candidate at King’s College London in the Department of War Studies. She is married and has two sons.

See her in this 2012 interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, promoting her book and defeating the comedian/news analyst in a push-up contest:

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