After 20 Years, Ex-Newsom Aide Speaks Out on Affair

Two decades after her relationship with then–San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom exploded into headlines, Ruby Rippey is finally telling the story in her own words—and she's not asking for sympathy. In an essay for Vanity Fair, Rippey traces how alcoholism, proximity to power, and a marriage to one of Newsom's top aides collided in what became a political scandal in early 2007. Rippey, who was also a Newsom aide, recounts the affair's beginnings at City Hall in 2005, the drinking and cocaine use that followed, the rehab stay, and the late-night email to her husband Alex that blew up both their lives—before Newsom's televised admission turned her into a public villain.

Newsom was single at the time, having split up with Kimberley Guilfoyle, who later became engaged to Donald Trump Jr., but the affair was still a major scandal "because he had a relationship with his subordinate and upended his close friend's marriage," the New York Times reports. In the essay, Rippey challenges later attempts to recast her as a powerless subordinate in a post-#MeToo narrative, insisting on a more complicated truth.

• "Power does not need to coerce. It only needs to exist," she writes. "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."

Rippey also reveals advice she got from then–San Francisco DA Kamala Harris not to speak out immediately or accept a book deal. She says Harris suggested she "just pause" because time would give her a better perspective. "It turns out to be the best advice I receive," she writes. She also shares her reaction to Newsom's new memoir, which she says minimizes the affair and subtly credits him, not her, with "coming clean" to her husband.

• Now 20 years sober, remarried, and on good terms with Alex, Rippey writes that the lasting pain functions as "protection," not punishment. For the full, unvarnished account, read her full essay at Vanity Fair.
• A Newsom spokesman said Tuesday that the governor has already addressed the affair in his memoir and elsewhere, and "out of respect for everyone involved, does not have anything further to add," Politico reports.