[115] Some conjecture that Anne's death merely served to deflect questions about Buchanan's sexuality and bachelorhood.[112] Several writers have surmised that he was homosexual, including James W. Loewen,[116] Robert P. Watson, and Shelley Ross.[117][118] One of his biographers, Jean Baker, suggests that Buchanan was celibate, if not asexual.[119]
Buchanan had a close relationship with William Rufus King, which became a popular target of gossip. King was an Alabama politician who briefly served as vice president under Franklin Pierce. Buchanan and King lived together in a Washington boardinghouse and attended social functions together from 1834 until 1844. Such a living arrangement was then common, though King once referred to the relationship as a "communion".[114] Andrew Jackson called King "Miss Nancy" and Buchanan's Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown referred to King as Buchanan's "better half", "wife", and "Aunt Fancy".[120][121][122] Loewen indicated that Buchanan late in life wrote a letter acknowledging that he might marry a woman who could accept his "lack of ardent or romantic affection".[123][124] Catherine Thompson, the wife of cabinet member Jacob Thompson, later noted that "there was something unhealthy in the president's attitude.