New NBC reporter Chelsea Clinton explains why she waited to enter public life

Says late grandmother was a big inspiration

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Chelsea Clinton

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Chelsea Clinton has opened up about what inspired her to enter public life.

The only daughter of former president Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who recently was hired as an new NBC reporter, said it was at the age of 30 she finally decided to step into the public spotlight after taking advice from her late grandmother.

 “I took what she (her grandmother) said seriously - that I had led an inadvertently public life for a long time and maybe it was time to start leading a purposefully public life,” she told the New York Times.

Clinton, who married her investment banker husband, Marc Mezvinsky, in 2010, spent much of her adolescence growing up in the White House when her father was president, between 1993 and 2001.
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The past year has seen her adopt a big role in her father’s Clinton Global Initiative, as she joined the board of Barry Diller's Internet media holding company IAC.

Most recently, she announced her new role as a reporter with the NBC show, 'Making a difference'.

In an interview with the New York Times, Ms Clinton said, “I hope to make a positive, productive contribution, as cheesy as that may sound.

“For most of my life, I deliberately led a private life in the public eye.”

The 31-year-old said that a conversation with her late grandmother Dorothy Rodham made her change her mind.

“She told me being Chelsea Clinton had happened to me, and outside of my advocacy work and campaigning for my mom, I wasn't doing enough in the world.”

She added that her mother and father “taught me to approach the world critically, but also to approach it with a sense of responsibility”.

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