Gavin Newsom’s ex-lover exposes wife’s shocking hypocrisy in affair scandal comments

Before she was a women’s activist railing against the patriarchy, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s now-wife callously blamed his female underling for an affair that nearly derailed his career — according to a bombshell essay penned by his ex-lover Ruby Rippey.

After the affair exploded into the open in 2007, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who was then dating the former San Francisco mayor, went public with her two cents on the affair that Rippey described in searing detail in a Vanity Fair piece published Tuesday.

“I shouldn’t say this, but…if people did research into the scandal…the woman is the culprit,” Siebel Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Rippey — who was then named Rippey-Tourk and an aide in Newsom’s office — had carried on the affair while struggling with alcohol and cocaine abuse, as recounted in her essay.

“I have seen commentary about myself before—speculation, condemnation, the occasional defense. That is not new. What is new is his girlfriend entering the record—someone who came into his life after the affair,” Rippey wrote.

That wasn’t the end of Siebel Newsom’s color commentary about the affair between Newsom and his employee.

The former Hollywood actress turned feminist filmmaker left comments on the local news site SFist calling herself a “girl’s girl” who nonetheless branded Rippey “bad news” and appeared to dismiss her powerful husband’s role in the protracted sexual affair, which took place in 2005.

“I’m a total woman’s woman, girls girl…what’s your definition of affair?…it was a few nothing incidents when she showed up passed out outside of his door…she is bad news,” Siebel Newsom wrote at the time.

Newsom was going through “crises — divorce, the loss of his mother, the pressures of being mayor, etc. and he was vulnerable and lonely,” his now-wife posted online.

Siebel Newsom apologized for the comments after blowback.

However, Rippey described complicated feelings about the public chastisement from Siebel Newsom as, years later, the #MeToo movement called out powerful men who have taken advantage of women.

The affair began in 2005, when Newsom was separated from his then-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle and Rippey was married to Newsom’s close friend and campaign manager, Alex Tourk.

Newsom and Rippey locked eyes in a narrow hallway at a July 2005 wedding and the sexual encounters began soon after, the former aide wrote. The affair continued for several months before coming to an end as Rippey entered rehab for substance abuse issues.

Newsom called it the “stupidest and briefest of affairs” in his memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry.”

Rippey wrote in the Vanity Fair essay that she was a grown woman who consented to the affair, but later acknowledged the power dynamic at play.

“Still, the [#MeToo] reckoning exposed what I had missed: Power does not need to coerce. It only needs to exist,” Rippey wrote. “The responsibility to hold the line belongs to the one who holds it. That didn’t happen. But I didn’t stumble into the space left open—I saw a possibility and went for it.”

“Both things are true: I am responsible for what I did. Power does not distribute consequences evenly,” she added.

The essay labeled Kamala Harris, former San Francisco district attorney, a “real girl’s girl” after she reached out to offer Rippey support and advice.

Harris reportedly advised her to stay silent until she had more distance from the situation, which Rippey considered wise advice in retrospect.

“‘Just pause. More time will give you better perspective,’” Harris reportedly said.

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