Jeanine Pirro

Jeanine Pirro was married to Albert J. Pirro, Jr. from 1975 until their divorce was finalized in 2013. They have two children, Alex Pirro and Christi Pirro. After their marriage, the couple moved to Harrison, New York, where Jeanine began working as an assistant district attorney and Albert worked as a lobbyist.

Pirro is the daughter of Esther Awad Ferris and Nasser Ferris, Lebanese-American Maronite Catholics who were born in Bsalim, Lebanon. She has said that she was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and is a practicing Catholic.

Pirro began her legal career in 1975 as an assistant district attorney in Westchester County, New York. In 1978, she became the first chief of the county's Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Bureau after helping secure a federal grant to establish specialized domestic-violence units. Her work prosecuting domestic-abuse cases helped bring her national attention.

She was elected the first woman to serve as a judge of the Westchester County Court in 1990. In 1993, she became the first woman elected Westchester County district attorney, winning re-election in 1997 and 2001. During her tenure, she chaired the New York State Commission on Domestic Violence Fatalities and became the first female president of the New York State District Attorneys Association.

Pirro hosted the weekday court program Judge Jeanine Pirro on The CW from 2008 to 2011. The show received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2010 and won the Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program award in 2011.

She hosted Justice with Judge Jeanine on Fox News from 2011 to 2022, presenting commentary on major legal and political stories. In 2022, she became a permanent co-host of The Five, and she also appeared as a legal analyst on programs including Today, Larry King Live, and Geraldo at Large. Her screen credits include appearances in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, and God's Not Dead: We the People.

Pirro's television commentary has also led to legal controversy. She was named as a defendant in defamation litigation brought by Smartmatic over Fox News broadcasts concerning election-voting technology, and she was among the Fox hosts named in Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox News. Fox News settled the Dominion case and acknowledged that the broadcast statements at issue were false.

In 1986, Pirro was selected as Andrew O'Rourke's running mate in the Republican campaign for lieutenant governor of New York, but she withdrew before the election. In 2005, she entered the Republican race for the United States Senate against Hillary Clinton and later left that contest to run for New York attorney general. She lost the 2006 general election to Andrew Cuomo.

Pirro became an interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia in 2025 after being appointed by President Donald Trump. She was later confirmed to the full position. Her public political commentary has generally included strong support for Trump and conservative positions on criminal justice, gun ownership, and other national issues.

Pirro's first book, To Punish and Protect: A DA's Fight Against a System That Coddles Criminals, was published in 2003. She later wrote the crime novels Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel and Clever Fox: A Dani Fox Novel, drawing on her experiences as a young assistant district attorney.

Her political books include Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy (2018), Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge: The Left's Plot to Remake America (2019), and Don't Lie to Me: and Stop Trying to Steal Our Freedom (2020).