Bristol Palin dumps ‘white trash’ fiance

The news that Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, and her hockey-playing fiance Levi Johnston - the father of her baby boy, Tripp - have broken off their engagement after Bristol allegedly called Johnston's family "white trash" will come as little surprise to Palin-watchers.

When the news that Bristol was pregnant broke last summer, shortly after John McCain named her now famous mother as his presidential running-mate, there were persistent rumours that the couple might have been pressurised into staying together - and having the child - because of the Alaskan governor’s very public anti-abortion stance.

Sarah Palin went on to make political capital out of the affair, even inviting Levi and Bristol along for her first speech at the Republican convention last September.

However, those days of public harmony appear to be over. Levi's sister, Mercede Johnston, broke the news to Star magazine. She said Bristol dumped her brother having made it increasingly difficult for Levi to see the couple's two-month-old baby.

"Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible," said Mercede. "She [Bristol] tells him he can't take the baby to our house because she doesn't want him around 'white trash'!”

But while Johnston, 19, swiftly confirmed the report on Thursday, saying they broke off the engagement "a while ago", he said that the ‘White-trash’ remarks were untrue.

However, these comments prompted a "devastated" Bristol Palin to issue a statement. She said: "Unfortunately my family has seen many people say and do many things to 'cash in' on the Palin name. Sometimes that greed clouds good judgement and the truth."

Bristol and Levi became a favourite target of comedians during the presidential campaign. In one of Tina Fey’s famous Saturday Night Live sketches that spoofed the debate between Palin and Joe Biden, Fey, as Palin, said she was against gay marriage because she believed marriage was "a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers".

Last word to Mercede: “Bristol's just crazy. That's the nicest way I can put it."

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