'Don't you bow down to her': The real story behind Joe Biden's 'ENGLISH-HATING' mother who reviled the Queen

Catherine Finnegan once told Biden not to 'bow down to the Queen' when he met her for the first time when he was a Senator in 1982
UPDATED SEP 19, 2022
President Joe Biden compared Queen Elizabeth and mother Catherine Finnegan while paying tribute to Her Majesty (Joe Raedle/Getty Images and Toby Melville - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden compared Queen Elizabeth and mother Catherine Finnegan while paying tribute to Her Majesty (Joe Raedle/Getty Images and Toby Melville - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

LONDON, ENGLAND: President Joe Biden joined Britain in mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II II as he recollected his last memory with the monarch and how she reminded him of his mother, Catherine Finnegan, known as Jean. However, the comparison between the two ended on an awkward note, as Biden’s mother once reportedly refused to sleep in a bed that the Queen had slept in.

Before heading to Buckingham Palace, Biden said via The White House website on September 18, "The way she touched when she leaned over. The way -- she had that look like, Are you okay?Anything I can do for you? What do you need?" He added, "Make sure you do what you're supposed to do," he said, adding that she reminded him of his mother. "The American press has heard me say for a long time that I think the thing that is — maybe it’s too much, excuse the expression, the Irish of it, but it’s about treating people with dignity. I talk about how my mother and father thought that everyone, no matter who they were, no matter what their station, no matter where they were from deserved to be treated with dignity." However, in another anecdote, Jean was said to have hated England and the first thing she said to Biden, who was meeting the Queen for the first time, "Don't you bow down to her." 

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As per DailyMail, Biden had mentioned a comical incident in his memoir 'Promises to Keep' where he narrated how his mother reacted when he told her he was going to meet the Queen. "When I told my mother I was going to have an audience with the Queen of England, the first thing she said was, 'Don't you bow down to her,'" the passage reads. He reportedly met the Queen for the first time in 1982 when he was a Senator. 

He went on to recollect the time his mother, who is of Irish descent, traveled to the UK and spent a night in a hotel where she was told the Queen had once visited. To which, "She was so appalled that she slept on the floor all night, rather than risk sleeping on a bed that the Queen had slept on."

Author and British TV script writer Georgia Pritchett, who wrote 'My Mess is a Bit of a Life', shared how she met Biden in the White House when he was a Vice-President. The author also mentioned how he discussed that his mother, who died in 2010 at the age of 92, "hated the English," and wrote hundreds of poems on the matter. Pritchett said, "He went off to find them and returned with hundreds of poems describing how God must smite the English and rain blood on our heads." She even writes about the bed incident. She writes, "She was so appalled that she slept on the floor all night, rather than risk sleeping on a bed that the Queen had slept on.I admire anyone whose principles come between them and a comfy bed."

Joe biden had often called his mother a "formidable figure" who had a "profound" influence on his life. She helped hi overcome his childhood stutter.  

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