Scott Bessent and His Husband Are Partners in Life and Work — Let's Meet His Spouse

President Donald Trump's cabinet is filled with a cast of characters. Some, like Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr., hog the spotlight more than others. It seems like we can't go a day without seeing Noem drowning under a comically large cowboy hat as she spins lies and half-truths in various press conferences.

There are several members of the president's cabinet who get zero attention. Have you even heard of Scott Turner? He's the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. We assume he is somewhere doing some deep developing. Then there is Scott Bessent, who is Secretary of the Treasury. He loves making the press rounds, but rarely discusses his personal life. Here's what we know about his husband.

According to The Times, Bessent's sexual orientation was what stopped him from attending the U.S. Naval Academy. At the time, being gay was prohibited in the military. This is what led him to study political science at Yale. After failing to get elected as editor of the college newspaper, Bessent stumbled upon the financial world.

Bessent was working for George Soros in 2011 when he married John Freeman. The couple went on to have two children, courtesy of surrogates. Soon they were fixing up a former bank in Charleston, S.C. The salmon-colored building is appropriately known as the "pink house."

"In a certain geographic region at a certain economic level, being gay is not an issue," said Scott while chatting with the Yale alumni magazine in 2015. "If you had told me in 1984, when we graduated, and people were dying of AIDS, that 30 years later I’d be legally married and we would have two children via surrogacy, I wouldn’t have believed you."

Other than the pink house, Bessent and Freeman have purchased and sold at least 20 homes, per The Wall Street Journal. The couple loves buying and restoring historic houses, and even won a preservation award in 2021 for reviving a property in Charleston that was originally built in the 1840s. "They did extensive research on the property to really fine-tune this thing and bring it back to what it once was," said Robertson Allen of the Cassina Group.

Before Bessent and Freeman were married, the future Treasury Secretary bought a property in Bedford Hills, N.Y., for $11.3 million. Four years later, it was sold at a loss for $7.1 million. The following year, Bessent and his husband purchased a home in the South Hamptons for $9.95 million. Seven years later, the duo was making a little over $10 million off the sale.

Bessent's tenuous relationship to the Kennedys began in 2007 when he bought an apartment at One Sutton Place South that previously belonged to John F. Kennedy's sister. It was sold in 2009 at a $3 million loss.