Elizabeth "Betty" Draper Francis (formerly Draper, née Hofstadt) is a fictional character played by January Jones on AMC's television series Mad Men. She begins the show married to protagonist Don Draper (Jon Hamm); following a separation in the third season, the two remain divorced for the remainder of the series, but continue to share custody of their three children.

Blonde, beautiful, emotionally distant and immature, Betty spends the bulk of Mad Men slowly growing as a person amid the social and political turmoil of the 1960s. The character's appearance is often compared to that of Grace Kelly, with the similarities between the two also drawn during the first season of the series.

Jones received two Golden Globe nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her performance. She also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series twice along with the cast of Mad Men.

The character of Betty Draper was not originally part of the pilot, though she did ultimately appear in the broadcast episode. The script established that lead character Don Draper (Jon Hamm) was married, but only through dialogue, with no intention to show his home life. January Jones was instead initially considered, along with Elisabeth Moss, for the character Peggy Olson; Moss was ultimately cast as Peggy. Show creator Matthew Weiner then wrote two scenes featuring Betty, and Jones successfully auditioned for the part two days later. Although there were no full scripts or even plot ideas involving the character at the time, Weiner promised Jones that the character would be developed.

Weiner has attributed Mad Men's visual style to the influence of film director Alfred Hitchcock, who featured a signature "icy blonde" female character in many of his films. Betty Draper's character has also been compared to that of Peyton Place's Constance MacKenzie: "cold, remote, and emotionally unavailable."

Betty was born Elizabeth Hofstadt in 1932. According to her son's birth certificate, she was born in Cape May, New Jersey, where her wealthy family summered. In season two the character is said to have been raised in the home rural Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, in Cheltenham Township. Betty is of German ancestry. Betty attended Bryn Mawr College, an exclusive Seven Sister college majoring in anthropology, after which she briefly modeled in Italy before moving to Manhattan. It was during this time that she met Don Draper: he was writing ad copy for a fur company, and she was one of their models. He began courting her by buying her the fur coat she wore at a shoot. Betty and Don were married in May 1953. Betty's mother Ruth died early in 1960, three months before the events of the episode "Ladies Room". Her father, Gene (Ryan Cutrona), has a girlfriend named Gloria (Darcy Shean), whom Betty dislikes and whom her father marries sometime in the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2; Gloria leaves Gene when he begins showing signs of mental deterioration in Season 3. He moved in with the Drapers during season 3 and later died in that season, set in 1963. Betty has a brother, William (Eric Ladin), who is married to Judy (Megan Henning) and whose daughters Don and Betty consider to be "rowdy." Betty's confidantes have included her neighbor Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek) and Glen Bishop (Marten Holden Weiner), the young son of divorcée Helen Bishop (Darby Stanchfield). Ill-suited for parenting, Betty has a strained relationship with her children, particularly with her daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka).

Betty and Don Draper live in a large house in suburban Ossining, New York, with their children Sally and Bobby (Maxwell Huckabee). In the second episode, set in the spring of 1960, Betty starts to see a psychiatrist to address repeated spells of numbness in her hands, which medical doctors have indicated are psychosomatic. It was during these meetings that, after having discovered the psychiatrist was giving reports of her sessions to Don, she voiced her suspicion that her husband was unfaithful. By the start of the second season, set in February 1962, she had discontinued the consultations.

During the second-season episode "A Night to Remember", Betty and Don seem to have reached an agreement, but after a dinner party where Betty is embarrassed to be considered a "demographic" by Don and his associates, she confronts her husband for the first time about his adultery, specifically with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw). Don, however, denies having an affair. The next day, with a glass of wine in hand, Betty searches through Don's belongings for proof of his indiscretions but does not find any. Betty awakens Don - who is sleeping on the couch - that night and explains that she doesn't want things to "be like this." He repeats that he did not do anything, and when she asks if he hates her, he insists that he loves her and doesn't want to "lose this." When preparing dinner the next day, an Utz commercial featuring Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler) airs on television, reminding Betty of Don's infidelity. After seeing this, Betty calls Don at work and tells him she doesn't want him to come home.