Conservative ex-veep candidate Sarah Palin tried to secretly adopt her teenage daughter’s baby to hide the fact that he was conceived out of wedlock, the kid’s dad claims.
Levi Johnston says in an explosive new interview that Palin repeatedly badgered him to let her adopt the son he fathered with her daughter Bristol to try to maintain her own image as a squeaky-clean hockey mom of five.
“Sarah told me she had a great idea: We would keep it a secret — nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant,” Johnston, 19, told Vanity Fair magazine. “She told me that once Bristol had the baby, she and [husband] Todd would adopt him. That way, she said, Bristol and I didn’t have to worry about anything.
“Sarah kept mentioning this plan. She was nagging — she wouldn’t give it up. She would say, ‘So, are you gonna let me adopt him?’ ” he said.
“We both kept telling her we were definitely not going to let her adopt the baby. I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn’t want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid.”
Johnston said that after Sarah and Todd Palin learned that Bristol, now 18, was pregnant, they immediately told the young couple, “You gotta get married now.” The pair dutifully got engaged — but split shortly after their son, Tripp, was born in December.
In the article, Johnston said the former Alaska governor and her husband rarely spoke to each other.
“I’ve never seen them sleep in the same bedroom,” he said. “There was a lot of talk of divorce in that house and there were times when Sarah and Todd would mention it and sound pretty serious.
“Sarah would say something, and I don’t know how it would make Todd mad, but his anger would elevate so fast. Todd would say, ‘All right, do you want a divorce? Is that what you want? Lets’s do it! Sign the papers!’ ” Johnston said.
He also claimed that even before Palin was chosen as John McCain’s running mate, her home was not what most people think.
“There wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd doesn’t cook — the kids would do it all themselves,” Johnston said.
Johnston said Palin got used to having people do things for her during the campaign, and when she returned home, she decided being governor was too hard.
“She started talking about how nice it would be to quit and write a book or do a show and make ‘triple the money,’ ” Johnston said.
“She would blatantly say, ‘I want to just take this money and quit being governor.’ “
andy.geller@nypost.com