After Thursday night’s debate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom made the rounds in the spin room as a surrogate for Joe Biden but ended up being the belle of the ball as Democrats desperately seek any alternative to the elderly president. Newsom vigorously defended Biden and quickly quashed any thoughts that he could replace Biden on the ballot then took his Twitter trolling to live TV with this gem:
When you have to say “I didn’t have sex with a porn star” you’re not winning the campaign — you’re losing. pic.twitter.com/kB0wQjw5Xl
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 28, 2024
Of course, Newsom then had to tweet out the clip (complete with Alex Wagner nearly drooling over him) with the insult written out.
Newsom hurled this out there despite having been in the uncomfortable – and losing – position of having to admit at a press conference back in February 2007 that he’d been having an affair with his scheduling secretary, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who also happened to be his best friend’s wife. At that time Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco, and Rippey-Tourk’s husband, Alex, was also working as his Deputy Chief of Staff.
Newsom said, in part:
I want to make it clear that everything you’ve heard and read is true, and I am deeply sorry about that. I’ve hurt someone I care deeply about, Alex Tourk, and his friends and family, and that is something that I have to live with and something that I am deeply sorry for.
I also want to extend a personal apology to everyone in our administration, tomy staff that I just met with, to my friends and my family members. I am deeply sorry and am accountable for what has occurred and have now begun the process of reconciling it, and now will be working aggressively to advance our agenda in the city and to work hard to build again the trust and restore the trust that the people of San Francisco have afforded me.
Some will likely say, well, he admitted it, and he apologized, and he’s attempting to make amends, so it’s no big deal; we all make mistakes. Keep reading.
As it turns out, Tourk learned of the betrayal by his wife and his best friend when Ruby told him the story as part of Ruby’s inpatient treatment for severe alcoholism and drug addiction. Tourk then had his attorney confront Newsom at the office to negotiate the terms of Tourk’s resignation.
In addition to the general despicableness of carrying on a sexual relationship with one’s best friend’s wife, there may have been some issues with Rippey-Tourk’s ability to give consent. In a lengthy, e.e. cummings-style comment posted on a story about the affair, Newsom’s then-girlfriend (and current wife) Jennifer Siebel said “It was a few nothing incidents when she showed up passed out outside of his door.”
Jennifer Siebel-Newsom admitted that she wrote the comment screenshotted above, and made other disparaging remarks about Rippey-Tourk, and issued an apology, in a statement on her PR agent’s website the next day.
READ MORE: Here Are Jennifer Newsom’s Disgusting Comments About the Employee Gavin Had an Affair With While SF Mayor
Four days after that press conference, Newsom issued a statement saying he, too, had “problems with alcohol” and was going to seek help:
“My problems with alcohol are not an excuse for my personal lapses in judgment,” Newsom said in a statement widely quoted in news reports. “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.”
Newsom told department heads at a meeting this afternoon that the help he is seeking would not require him to step aside even temporarily, as it might if he entered a residential rehabilitation program, sources familiar with the meeting told The Chronicle.
Having to deny an affair with a porn star on national television is a far more enviable position to be in than having to admit to having sex with your employee who’s also your best friend’s wife – on multiple occasions – who might have been too intoxicated to give consent. In the most generous of descriptions, that’s known as taking advantage of a woman, a woman who just might have been looking for a safe place to sleep it off.
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