Susan Waren has spent two decades avoiding the very attention that keeps pulling her name into Google searches. As the ex-wife of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, she could have cashed in on proximity to power. Instead, she chose to build a quiet life defined by teaching, public service, and philanthropic work. Here’s what you need to know about her.
Quick Facts About Susan Waren
Susan Waren was born on November 30, 1969, making her 55 years old as of 2025. She married Joe Scarborough in October 2001 and divorced him in 2013 after 12 years together. The couple had two children — daughter Kate (born August 2003) and son Jack (born May 2008). Today, Waren lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and maintains a private lifestyle almost absent from social media and public events. Her estimated net worth falls between $500,000 and $1 million, primarily from her career earnings, divorce settlement, and personal investments.
Career in Public Service
Before she became known as Scarborough’s wife, Waren built a track record in government. She worked as a congressional aide, gaining direct experience in legislative processes and policy formulation. This role gave her insight into how laws are made, and constituent needs are addressed — knowledge most people never acquire.
Following her congressional work, Waren moved into state-level government. She became an aide to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, where she handled program coordination, policy implementation, and community engagement across the state. This wasn’t a ceremonial position. She navigated complex administrative systems and helped move policies forward on issues that affected thousands of Floridians.
Her work didn’t stop after leaving the governor’s office. Waren served with the Florida Governor’s Mansion Foundation, focusing on the restoration and preservation of historic sites. This role aligned her professional skills with her values around cultural heritage — work that produces tangible community benefit but rarely makes headlines.
Transition to Education
Waren’s career shifted toward direct human impact when she became a teacher. She taught at Alexandria City Public Schools, where she spent her days working with students rather than politicians. Teaching represents a deliberate choice toward substance over status — long hours, modest pay, and genuine influence on young people’s lives.
Her background in education, combined with her experience in policy and governance, positioned her as someone who understood both how systems work and how they affect individuals. This perspective is rare. Most people work in either the theoretical world of policy or the practical world of classrooms, but rarely both.
Marriage and Family Life
Waren married Joe Scarborough in 2001, just as his career was shifting from Congress to television. She chose to remain behind the scenes during this transition. While Scarborough’s profile grew with his MSNBC show, Waren prioritised family stability over media opportunities.
She and Scarborough had two children together. By most accounts, Waren focused her energy on raising them rather than leveraging her connection to a rising television personality. This choice meant she turned down book deals, speaking engagements, and other visibility opportunities that most people in her position would have pursued.
The divorce in 2013 came after 12 years of marriage. According to public records, Scarborough paid her $150,000 as a one-time settlement and $30,000 per month in spousal support for five years, followed by $25,000 month for two additional years. He also paid off their Connecticut home and covered the children’s schooling expenses. The financial arrangement was substantial, but Waren’s post-divorce life shows she didn’t depend on it for identity or purpose.
Life After Divorce
Since 2013, Waren has maintained an even lower profile than during her marriage. She has not been publicly linked to new relationships. Instead, she concentrated on her children’s well-being and continued her involvement in charitable work. By all accounts, her parenting style emphasises kindness, patience, and encouraging her children’s independence.
Waren relocated to Fort Lauderdale, seeking the warm climate and coastal lifestyle she preferred. Her Instagram bio mentions she’s a summer girl and “mermaid” — describing herself by her personal values rather than her past connections. The account shows a life focused on local activities, family moments, and community involvement rather than celebrity connections.
She has maintained her commitment to privacy, avoiding interviews, public appearances, and media coverage. This isn’t isolation; it’s selective engagement. She appears in her children’s lives, participates in charitable causes, and maintains professional relationships — all without requiring public recognition.
Unique Contributions to Community
What sets Waren apart is her commitment to substance over visibility. Her work with historic preservation through the Florida Governor’s Mansion Foundation preserved cultural heritage for future generations. Her teaching touched individual students at a formative age. Her policy work influenced how government functions across an entire state.
These contributions don’t come with the rewards of fame. No one recognises her at restaurants. Her name doesn’t trend on social media. She doesn’t monetise her experience or build a personal brand. Yet her impact — on her students, on her community, on historic preservation efforts — is real and enduring.
This approach to life stands in sharp contrast to the celebrity culture that often surrounds people connected to media figures. She had every opportunity to become a television personality herself, write a memoir, or build a public platform. She chose differently.
Why People Search for Susan Waren
Most searches for Susan Waren stem from curiosity about Joe Scarborough’s personal life. People want to know who he was married to, why they divorced, and what happened to her afterwards. This is natural — public figures’ relationships capture public interest.
But the story worth telling isn’t about her marriage. It’s about a woman who was briefly in the spotlight because of who she married, then deliberately stepped out and built a meaningful, private life. In an age when everyone with proximity to power tries to leverage it into influence, her choice to opt out is genuinely unusual.
Key Distinctions: Don’t Confuse Her Name
Online searches often mix up Susan Waren with other similarly named people — Susan Warren (a different person entirely), Susan Ware (a historian), or Susan May Warren (a Christian romance author). When you search “Susan Waren,” you’re looking for Joe Scarborough’s ex-wife who worked in government and education, not these other individuals.
What We Know and Don’t Know
Here’s what’s verified: her birth date, her marriage and divorce dates, her children’s names and birth dates, her roles in Congress and the governor’s office, her work in education and historic preservation, her current location in Fort Lauderdale, and her approximate net worth based on divorce records.
What remains private — and appropriately so — is much of her personal life, her relationships, her exact daily activities, and many details about her family. This is how she prefers it, and it’s her right to maintain that boundary.
The Bottom Line
Susan Waren represents a particular kind of strength. She didn’t use her connection to power to build a brand. She didn’t publish a tell-all book or leverage her divorce into media appearances. Instead, she built a life of service — in education, in government, in community work — and maintains it quietly.
Today, she’s remembered less for who she was married to and more by those who know her directly — her students, her colleagues, her children. For most people reading this, that’s the only legacy that matters.