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A former aide to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is revisiting their decades-old affair that rocked San Francisco politics, sharing details of the relationship in a Vanity Fair essay published Tuesday.
The essay by Ruby Rippey, who worked as Newsom’s appointments secretary when he was mayor of San Francisco, brought to light details of their 20-year-old affair ahead of the governor’s likely presidential run.
Rippey remained relatively mum since news of the affair broke in 2007. Newsom, who was unmarried at the time but dating his current wife Jennifer Siebel, admitted to having a brief sexual relationship with Rippey while she was married to his close friend and campaign manager Alex Tourk.
Rippey also revealed that former Vice President Harris, then San Francisco’s district attorney, advised her against writing a memoir about the affair after it became public.
“I wouldn’t say anything right now, Ruby. Just pause. More time will give you better perspective,” Rippey recalled Harris telling her, saying it “turns out to be the best advice I receive.”
While Rippley has taken responsibility for the consensual affair, noting her struggles with alcoholism and cocaine addiction that spiraled the time, she wrote that she believes Newsom also bore responsibility for the power he held as her supervisor.
“Power does not need to coerce,” she wrote. “It only needs to exist. The responsibility to hold the line belongs to the one who holds it. That didn’t happen.”
Newsom briefly addressed the scandal in his recent memoir, describing the relationship as “the stupidest and also briefest of affairs” and “the worst betrayal of my life.”
Both Newsom and Rippey say the affair, which Rippey said began in the summer of 2005 and was on-and-off for months, was fueled by alcohol.
Rippey, however, took issue with Newsom’s portrayal of how the affair came to light and how he owned up to his actions.
“A year later, to her credit, Ruby decided to come clean to her twelve-step group. I came clean to Hilary and to Alex Tourk,” he wrote in his memoir, referring to his sister Hilary Newsom Callan.
Rippey said she confessed the affair to Tourk directly before he confronted Newsom, arguing his memoir leaves “the unmistakable impression that he, not I, was the one who told Alex the truth.”
“It reads — to me at least — as a version of events that gives him credit for something I had already done,” she wrote.
A spokesperson for Newsom said Tuesday that the governor had publicly acknowledged his role in the affair and apologized for his actions, and “out of respect for everyone involved, does not have anything further to add.”
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