After decades of public scorn and doubt, definitive DNA testing has proven that former President Warren Harding indeed shared a love child with Nan Britton.
Ancestors of both Britton and Harding submitted DNA to AncestryDNA, a division of Ancestry.com, and the results showed that Britton's daughter, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, was the product of an affair between the two that lasted six years, according to Business Insider.
Though Harding supported his daughter financially, he never met her nor acknowledged her publicly as his own.
When Harding died, Britton decided to go public with the scandal and eventually wrote a book, the first mistress of a U.S. president to do so.
The 1927 autobiography "The President's Daughter" gave intimate details of the six-year affair, even divulging a scene that happened in the White House closet, according to ABC News.
At the time, Britton's book was met with lots of public ridicule labeling her as a "sex pervert" and "degenerate."
She had a hard time convincing the public of the validity of her claim partly because she had very little proof. The love letters between her and Harding were destroyed, upon his request, and it had been a well-established "fact" among Harding's family that he was sterile, according to the New York Times.
"My father said this couldn't have happened because President Harding had mumps as a kid and was infertile and the family really vilified Nan Britton," said Harding descendant Dr. Peter Harding.
There was animosity between the descendants of both Harding and Britton, both families supporting their ancestor's claims.
Some Harding historians refer to Britton as the Monica Lewinsky of her time.
