wiki-
De Blasio was born
Warren Wilhelm, Jr. in
Manhattan, the son of Maria (
née de Blasio) and Warren Wilhelm.
[1] His father was of German ancestry, and his maternal grandparents, Giovanni and Anna, were
Italian immigrants
[3][4] from the city of
Sant'Agata de' Goti in the
province of Benevento.
[5]
De Blasio was raised in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[6] De Blasio's mother graduated from
Smith College in 1938, and his father graduated
Phi Beta Kappa from
Yale University. His mother was 44 years old when he was born, and he has two older brothers, Steven and Donald.
[7] De Blasio's grandfather, Donald Wilhelm, an author, graduated from
Harvard University.
[7] Although he was baptized Catholic, de Blasio is nonpracticing. He speaks
Italian.
[7]
De Blasio has stated that his father first left home when he was seven years old and, shortly after, his parents divorced.
[8] In a 2012 interview, de Blasio described his upbringing: "[My dad] was an officer in the
Pacific in the army, [and fought] in an extraordinary number of very, very difficult, horrible battles, including
Okinawa.... And I think honestly, as we now know about veterans who return, [he] was going through physically and mentally a lot.... He was an alcoholic, and my mother and father broke up very early on in the time I came along, and I was brought up by my mother's family—that's the bottom line—the de Blasio family."
[9] In September 2013, de Blasio revealed that his father committed suicide in 1979 while suffering from incurable lung cancer.
[10]
In 1983, he changed his name to Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm, which he described in April 2012: "I started by putting the name into my diploma, and then I hyphenated it legally when I finished NYU, and then, more and more, I realized that was the right identity." By the time he appeared on the public stage in 1990, he was using the name Bill de Blasio as he explained he had been called "Bill" or "Billy" in his personal life.
[9] He did not legally change over to this new name until 2002, when the discrepancy was noted during an election.
[11]
De Blasio received a B.A. from
New York University, majoring in metropolitan studies, a program in urban studies, and a Master of International Affairs from
Columbia University's
School of International and Public Affairs.
[12] He is a 1981
Harry S. Truman Scholar.
[13]
So you brainwashed jackasses are all WRONG AGAIN.