When the future Mrs. Gavin Newsom started dating him there was some confusion – lots of people thought she was a teenage model half his age who he had also been linked to.
Jennifer Newsom later recalled: ‘The whole first month we were dating, everyone thought I was her (the 19-year-old model) and were saying, “We need to card you.”‘
Indeed, the likeness was striking, and not just between those two women – the wife of a close friend of Newsom’s, who he had an affair with in the noughties, bore a passing resemblance too.
Back in those days Newsom did a lot of apologizing, including over his ‘problems’ with alcohol, which he said he would address. He never went to rehab, despite initially indicating he would.
Of course, it was all a long time ago. Newsom and his wife Jennifer have now been happily married for 16 years and have four children.
And, on Sunday he confirmed his ambition to run for the White House in 2028, telling CBS: ‘Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise. I’d just be lying. And I can’t do that.’
He added: ‘I’m looking forward to who presents themselves in 2028 and who meets that moment. And that’s the question for the American people.’
Newsom is already the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination. But Republican operatives are busily looking at the scandals they can revisit, and his own supporters will also have to reckon with his past.
Another potential banana skin for Newsom is expected to be the infamous French Laundry scandal. The incident, named after a swanky restaurant where he dined during the pandemic, is set to haunt him in the campaign to come. But more of that later.
Gavin Newsom and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom wave to supporters during a gubernatorial election night event on November 6, 2018 in Los Angeles, California
The tale of Newsom’s colorful love life began in the early 1990s when he dated kindergarten teacher Kelley Phleger for five years. Later, she ended up wedding Miami Vice actor Don Johnson, to whom she is still married.
Newsom then married Kimberly Guilfoyle in 2001 and they divorced in 2006, while he was Mayor of San Francisco. She was later engaged to Donald Trump Jr.
The mayor was then photographed, on September 6, 2006, walking the red carpet at the opening night of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, with 19-year-old aspiring model Brittanie Mountz, when he was 38.
Newsom later denied he was dating Mountz.
Soon after, he was then set up on a blind date with Jennifer, who had previously dated George Clooney.
Jennifer later revealed that, shortly after they began seeing each other, Newsom told her: ‘You’re not going to want to talk to me after tomorrow. There’s a thing in the paper coming out about me and my 20-year-old girlfriend. I never dated her.’
After it did, Jennifer was repeatedly mistaken for Mountz.
California Governor Gavin Newsom confirmed he will consider running for the White House in 2028
Brittanie Mountz, who was linked to Gavin Newsom in the press when he was mayor of San Francisco but he later said they were not dating
‘You just have to have a sense of humor about those things,’ she later told People magazine.
But a worse scandal, one that rocked Newsom’s chances of a national political future, was about to hit.
In 2007 Newsom publicly admitted to having had an affair two years earlier with his City Hall appointments secretary.
The employee, Ruby Rippey Gibney, was at the time married to his good friend and campaign adviser, Alex Tourk.
‘I am deeply sorry,’ Newsom said in a written statement the time. ‘I humbly ask all of those I have hurt for their forgiveness. I will not let my personal failures impact my public duties.
‘I believe the best way I can atone for what I have done is to focus every day on helping to make this a better city. That is what I intend to do.’
California governor Gavin Newsom had an affair with his campaign adviser’s wife Ruby Rippey Gibney in 2005
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007, Jennifer, his future wife, defended him and blamed Gibney.
‘I shouldn’t say this, but there are two sides to every story,’ she said. ‘If people did research into the scandal…the woman is the culprit. Alex Tourk is a nice man and it saddens me that his wife did that to him.’
She later apologized for those comments, saying: ‘I am deeply sorry that I have made some public statements in the past few days that have hurt Alex and Ruby Tourk and everyone else involved in this issue.
‘This is a very painful situation for everyone involved and, in my case, it lead to an expression of frustration that I profoundly regret.
‘I have tried to see Ruby’s side of the story but unfortunately everyone near to her has stories and says she is bad news.’
The Tourk marriage ended after the affair and Gibney quit her job at City Hall.
Jennifer Newsom, whom he married in 2008, watches Newsom on TV in 2023
Later, when the #MeToo movement emerged, Ruby said the affair with her boss was not a case of sexual harassment.
‘I fully support the #metoo movement,’ she wrote on Facebook. ‘In this particular instance, however, I am doubtful that it applies.
‘Yes, I was a subordinate, but I was also a freethinking, 33-year-old old adult married woman & mother. [I also happened to have an unfortunate inclination towards drinking-to-excess & self-destruction].’
For his part, Newsom, on February 6, 2007, announced he would seek treatment at San Francisco’s Delancey Street Foundation, which bills itself as a ‘leading residential self-help organization for substance abusers, ex-convicts, homeless and others who have hit bottom.’
The Los Angeles Times ran a headline saying: ‘San Francisco mayor seeks alcohol treatment.’
In his statement Newsom, who was 39 at the time, said: ‘Upon reflection with friends and family this weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I will be a better person without alcohol in my life.
‘My problems with alcohol are not an excuse for my personal lapses in judgment.’
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, left, Gordon Getty, center, and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, right, enjoy a pre-dinner glass of wine during a hospitality event of the Napa Valley Wine Auction at the PlumpJack Winery in Oakville, Calif., Thursday, June 3, 2004
California Governor Gavin Newsom greets President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump
Newsom’s first wife Kimberly Guilfoyle was later engaged to Donald Trump Jr
However, Newsom later clarified that he had not entered rehab, instead undergoing counseling from Mimi Silbert, president of the Delancey Street Foundation, and then resumed drinking under her guidance.
A decade later, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he ‘enjoys a little wine again.’
‘It was a reset.’ he said. ‘And I’m glad I did it. It was a great thing to do. And it was easy to do. There’s 10 years of evidence that, you know, that’s not an issue. I literally, one day, just stopped for a couple of years.’
In 2018 he told the Sacramento Bee: ‘There’s no rehab. I just stopped. There was no treatment, no nothing related to any of that stuff. I stopped because I thought it was a good thing to stop. There is no 12-step [program] here.’
He added: ‘Sometimes people make mistakes in their lives and you then work hard never to make them again, because you learn from them. I like to think I’m a better person.’
Many Democratic voters clearly think that is the case.
In a series of recent polls Newsom has led Kamala Harris by up to 16 points.
However, one poll in found California voters think the state’s governor is spending too much time increasing his national profile.
In the 1990s Gavin Newsom dated Kelley Phleger for five years and she later married Miami Vice star Don Johnson
Newsom has been with his current wife Jennifer for 16 years and they have four children
Some Democrats have praised him for being a loud voice opposing President Donald Trump’s ICE immigration raids and California redistricting, including by mimicking Trump’s style on social media.
Many Republicans are already convinced that he will be the Democratic nominee and are preparing social media attacks.
Those are likely to include a resurfacing of the French Laundry scandal which Republicans believe will show him as a hypocrite.
On November 6, Newsom and his wife dined at French Laundry, a Michelin star restaurant in Napa Valley, with a group of 10 friends just days before his administration advised Californians not to host indoor Thanksgiving dinners.
The occasion was a 50th birthday party for Jason Kinney, one of Newsom’s political advisers, and the $350 tasting menu included charcoal grilled Japanese wagyu and Island Creek Oysters.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is shown above, left, sitting with 11 others in the dining room at The French Laundry on November 6, without a mask. The photos were obtained by Fox 11 LA via a Twitter user
Amid a subsequent backlash Newsom initially said the gathering was outdoors, but witnesses revealed the group was completely inside.
Photographs then emerged of them sat around a table not wearing masks.
Two top officials from the California Medical Association were among those in attendance.
The CMA represents 50,000 doctors and had recently tweeted messages including #StayHome and #WearAMask.
Dustin Corcoran, CMA’s chief executive officer and Janus Norman, a senior vice president, were also among the dozen people at The CMA is considered a lobbying powerhouse in Sacramento and had spent over $2 million lobbying state leaders the previous year.
As the dinner conversation flowed Newsom, dressed in a gray sweatshirt, was seen leaning close to one of the CMA executives.
The French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California
News of the gathering caused outrage in California where Newsom had imposed one of the harshest lockdowns in the country.
Social situations were supposed to be limited to people from no more than three households.
Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, said: ‘In the future when critics of lobbyists make their case, this dinner will be Exhibit A.’
Newsom, by now well practiced in the art of the public apology, asked forgiveness again.
He said: ‘I made a bad mistake. I need to preach and practice, not just preach and not practice.’
As Democrats mull their choice for 2028 they will have to consider if it was one mistake too many.
