Jill Kelley

Jill Kelley
Jill Kelley
	Jill Kelley
Born	Jill Gilberte Khawam; June 3, 1975 (age 49); Beirut, Lebanon
Occupations	Activist; philanthropist; diplomatic advisor;
Spouse	Scott Kelley (m. 1999)
Children	3
Website	jillkelley.com

Jill Kelley is a Lebanese-American philanthropist, activist, and diplomatic advisor.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] She is also a former South Korean Honorary Consul,^[6]^[7] and a former honorary ambassador to U.S. Central Command under General James N. Mattis.^[8]^[9]

Biography

Jill Kelley was born Gilberte Khawam on June 3, 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon to Syrian parents.^[10]^[11]^[1] Her identical twin sister is Natalie Khawam, a Washington, D.C. lawyer.^[11]^[12] She grew up near Philadelphia, and was known as Gigi.^[11] She has an older sister and a younger brother.^[11]

Her parents immigrated to the United States in 1976 and opened a Middle Eastern restaurant in Voorhees, New Jersey in 1988.^[11] Jill graduated from Lower Moreland High School in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania in 1993. She then worked with a physician as a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. She met Scott Kelley, a cancer surgeon, and the two married in 1998.^[11] The couple has three children.^[1]

Since the early 2000s, Kelley and her husband have been known for their lavish parties, with guest lists including military leaders and other dignitaries.^[12]^[13]^[11] Their parties in the Tampa area include bashes for the Gasparilla Pirate Festival.^[11]^[14] These include parties at their house in Tampa, and various events in Washington, D.C.^[12]^[13]^[11] In November 2017, Kelley hosted a party at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. to celebrate Donald Trump winning the 2016 United States presidential election.^[15]

She speaks Arabic.^[15]

Career

In 2007, she founded the Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation along with her husband and sister.^[1] The foundation's mission was "to conduct cancer research and to grant wishes to terminally ill adult cancer patients."^[16] The charity went bankrupt by the end of the year.^[17] Later, Kelley and her husband, Scott Kelley, started Kelley Land Holdings, a property company that was involved in a foreclosure suit in Tampa in 2010.^[1] In 2012, Kelley held the informal title of Honorary Consul to South Korea and served as Honorary Ambassador to U.S. Central Command in Tampa. Kelley runs an advisory firm called Military Diplomacy Strategies LLC and is a founder of SafeGuard Surgical, a medical technology company, as well as EdentifID, a blockchain technology company.^[13]^[18]^[19]

Recognition

Kelley was honored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for work on behalf of United States Central Command and its international coalition.^[13]

Controversies

Petraeus scandal

Jill and Scott Kelley met General David Petraeus when he was transferred to MacDill Air Force Base in November 2008. They quickly became friends, and had frequent dinner parties together. Through the Petraeuses, the Kelleys became close to other senior military personnel, including John R. Allen and Robert Harward.^[11] In 2012, Kelley filed a complaint to the FBI that she was being harassed over email. The ensuing investigation uncovered that General Petraeus was having an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and that Broadwell had authored the emails to Kelley. The investigation also uncovered 20,000-30,000 pages of possibly "inappropriate communication" between Kelley and General John R. Allen.^[1] In 2016, Kelley published a memoir about her role in the Petraeus scandal.^[14]