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WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, OH ‒ In an Ohio church, Beverly Aikins shared stories about her sobriety journey and rekindling a relationship with her son, Vice President JD Vance.
Vance put Aikins’ story of substance use and recovery into the national spotlight with his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” On Sept. 8, Aikins shared her story in her own words at a church in Fayette County.
“I feel like I’ve been given a platform and hopefully, if it helps one person, it’s worth it,” she said.
Today, Aikins is a nurse at Seacrest Recovery Center, a drug addiction treatment center in suburban Cincinnati. She still lives in the Middletown condo that Vance bought for her.
Here are four things we learned from Aikins’ event.
She gets a daily call from Vance’s 5-year-old son
Aikins said she talks to her kids and grandchildren on a regular basis, including daily video calls from Vance’s 5-year-old son, Vivek.
“His kids have cell phones – they have to have cell phones for Secret Service reasons,” Aikins said. “His 5-year-old calls me every day on his way home from school.”
Before her event on Sept. 8, Vivek told his grandma about the shapes he’d been learning about in class.
“I asked him what his favorite shape was, and he goes, ‘Orange triangles.’ Because he’s 5, and he’s very specific,” Aikins said laughing. “He goes, ‘What’s your favorite shape?’ And I said, ‘Green circles.’ And he said, ‘Oh yeah, I like those too, Nana.’”
Vivek Vance, now 5 years old, rested his head while his father, Vice President JD Vance, spoke with President Donald Trump during the inauguration on Jan. 20.
Aikins’ inauguration celebration led to a court date
Weeks of hospitalization and a surgery nearly prevented Aikins from attending Vance’s inauguration on Jan. 20. But when she did get to Washington, D.C., Aikins was also celebrating a sobriety milestone and her 64th birthday that weekend.
She recalled how her D.C. celebrations led to an expired car registration and a $25 court fee.
“My tags expired on Jan. 20 and I forgot because I was in Washington,” she said. “I got pulled over for expired tags.”
Back in her hometown of Middletown, Aikins pleaded no contest in court.
“I said, ‘Look, I had a lot going on Jan. 20,’” she recalled. “They found me guilty and charged me $25 in court costs.”
In April, Aikins returned to the White House to celebrate her 10 years of sobriety with Vance, family and friends.
“He (Vance) made it very special,” Aikins said. “He gave everybody a tour of the White House and the west wing, and President Trump gave me one of his challenge coins. It was really cool.”
She hung up on ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ director and asked for higher pay
Years after Vance’s memoir was published, Aikins got a call from director Ron Howard. “Hillbilly Elegy” was going to become a movie, and Howard told Aikins she would get paid $12,000 to be “portrayed” in the film by actor Amy Adams, she said.
Aikins said she hung up on him.
“I said, ‘You want to tell the whole world I’m a drug addict whore for $12,000?!’ Click,” she said.
After speaking to Vance, Aikins got an entertainment lawyer and negotiated a higher pay for the film. With the money, she was able to start the process to regain her nursing license, which she had lost after being fired for stealing drugs from the hospital where she worked.
Aikins says Vance’s firstborn son brought them closer together
Aikins’ relationship with Vance was strained after her years of substance use, but she said everything changed in 2017, when Vance and his wife Usha had their first child, Ewan.
“I think when he saw that little baby boy, he realized that he loved that baby boy unconditionally and he would do anything for him. And I think it hit him,” Aikins said tearfully. “I’m a drug addict, and drug addiction is a disease. And even though I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I would do anything for him. I loved him unconditionally.”
Ewan, who is now 8, has two younger siblings: 5-year-old Vivek and 3-year-old Mirabel.
“From that minute on, our relationship changed,” Aikins recalled. “I started getting calls. I started getting texts. And I know it’s because of that little boy.”
JD Vance’s wife Usha hugged their son Ewan while Vance spoke to media in Cincinnati on Election Day.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: JD Vance’s mom says she gets daily phone calls from his 5-year-old son
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