Gavin Newsom’s Ex-Mistress Breaks Silence on Affair

Gavin Newsom’s past just came roaring back into the spotlight.

The California governor, long viewed as one of the Democratic Party’s most polished national figures, is facing renewed scrutiny after his former mistress, Ruby Rippey, published a stunning first-person essay detailing the affair that nearly blew up his political career before it ever reached the national stage.

Rippey, a former San Francisco City Hall aide, described the scandalous relationship in a lengthy Vanity Fair essay released Tuesday, revisiting the explosive affair that once rocked Bay Area politics and almost derailed Newsom’s rise.

The affair first became public in 2007, when Newsom was mayor of San Francisco. At the time, Rippey was married to Alex Tourk, one of Newsom’s closest friends and top political aides. Newsom, meanwhile, had not yet finalized his divorce from Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is now the U.S. Ambassador to Greece.

Newsom eventually admitted to the affair during a dramatic public appearance, issuing an apology that became one of the most infamous moments of his early career.

But Rippey’s new essay adds a far more personal and uncomfortable account of what she says happened behind closed doors.

According to Rippey, she joined Newsom’s successful 2003 mayoral campaign alongside her husband. Once Newsom took office, she became part of his administration, and she says her office was moved closer to his.

Rippey wrote that she began paying more attention to her appearance, describing Chanel makeup, pink patent leather heels and tight pencil skirts. She said she felt important inside City Hall, even as her life was about to spiral.

“It’s hard to reconcile that woman with the person I would become in one short year,” she wrote.

Rippey also recalled an awkward moment at a Mexican restaurant when Newsom allegedly complimented her appearance in front of her husband.

“Hey—you look really good,” she quoted him as saying. “You’ve lost all your pregnancy weight.”

Rippey, who described herself as an alcoholic trying to stay sober during the early days of Newsom’s administration, said the comment stirred something in her and made her crave alcohol again.

She wrote that the affair began on July 2, 2005, after she broke her sobriety at a wedding.

Rippey said she drank wine and champagne before ending up in a narrow hallway outside a bathroom with Newsom.

“My boss and I end up in the narrow hallway outside the bathroom at the same time. We wait, across from each other,” she wrote. “The space is tight. The silence stretches. He slips his hands into his tan trouser pockets and smiles—his usual shy, aw-shucks smile. I say nothing. I hold his gaze longer than I should.”

“The air changes,” she added.

From there, Rippey said, her memory became hazy.

She recalled dipping her toes into a hot tub with Newsom and later getting into his town car. On the way to The Carneros Inn, she said, Newsom massaged her feet.

The next thing she remembered, she wrote, was waking up the next morning “cold, almost shivering” and “soaked from the waist down.”

Rippey said she had passed out and wet the bed while Newsom slept nearby.

A few days later, she said, Newsom returned a gold bracelet from her grandmother that she had left in the hotel room.

Rippey described the affair as a dangerous addiction, not love.

“It isn’t love. It isn’t romance. It’s intoxication,” she wrote. “The text message is a hit. The glance across the hallway, a hit. The risk floods my bloodstream.”

She said the secrecy and risk consumed her as she walked the halls of City Hall, feeling the thrill of Newsom’s attention.

In another alleged encounter, Rippey said she spilled wine on Newsom’s carpet while he tried to scrub out the stain from his bedroom. According to Rippey, Newsom then appeared to shift some of the blame onto her.

“You know, we really can’t do this anymore. You can’t be doing this to Alex,” she quoted him as saying.

Rippey thought the moment might end the affair. Instead, she said, the relationship continued for months.

She wrote that she traveled to Los Angeles to remain close to him. During one hotel stay, she said Newsom texted her, “You guys should come by.”

After drinking at his hotel bar, Rippey said, her memory went blank again.

She later woke up beside Newsom, with buttons scattered across the floor. At first, she said, she did not know where they came from. Ashamed, she booked a flight home and cried on the plane.

When Newsom texted her afterward, she realized the buttons had come from his shirt.

“Thank God the W had T-shirts,” she quoted him as texting.

By that point, Rippey said, the affair had shattered her life.

She described coming into work late, leaving early, drinking heavily and struggling to keep herself together. Her workplace had been reduced to a makeshift office that had once been a copy room.

“By now, the version of myself manning the nerve center is collapsing,” she wrote.

Rippey said the affair finally ended after her drinking worsened and she began using cocaine. An emergency room visit for a nosebleed that would not stop alerted her family to the seriousness of her condition.

Her sister told her that their father would pay for rehab, and Rippey agreed to go.

According to Rippey, her sister also warned Newsom to stay away from her.

“She is unwell. She is getting help. Even if she reaches out to you, it is your responsibility to say no,” her sister allegedly told him.

Newsom’s response, according to Rippey, was: “God bless, God bless.…”

At the same time, Rippey’s husband, Alex Tourk, was still working in Newsom’s political orbit. He joined Newsom’s 2006 reelection campaign, apparently unaware that his wife had been involved with the mayor.

In early 2007, Rippey said, she finally confessed the affair to her husband while staying at her parents’ house.

“Just sex—on and off for months—with the mayor,” she wrote to him. “It ended before rehab. I’m sorry.”

The revelation sent shockwaves through San Francisco politics. Tourk reportedly arranged a meeting with Newsom to confront him, and soon after, the affair exploded across local headlines.

Newsom admitted to the affair on television in February 2007 while he was dating Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who later became his wife and California’s first partner.

Rippey said she stayed silent as her phone filled with calls and messages from reporters.

She also wrote that she rejected any claim that her interactions with Newsom were nonconsensual.

“I was not coerced. I knew what I was doing,” she wrote.

In another striking detail, Rippey said then-San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris called her at the time to discuss whether she planned to speak publicly about Newsom.

According to Rippey, Harris urged caution.

“I wouldn’t say anything right now, Ruby. Just pause. More time will give you better perspective,” Harris allegedly told her.

The old scandal became relevant again this year after Newsom addressed the affair in his memoir. Rippey said she took issue with Newsom’s version of events, particularly his suggestion that he had “came clean” to her husband.

Rippey said that characterization was wrong because she had already confessed to Alex herself.

“That detail—subtle but significant—is the one that stays with me,” she wrote. “It reads—to me, at least—as a version of events that gives him credit for something I had already done.”

For Newsom, the timing is politically awkward.

The governor has spent years positioning himself as a national Democratic power player and frequent critic of Republicans. But Rippey’s essay drags one of the messiest chapters of his career back into the public eye, reminding voters of the scandal that once threatened to end his ambitions before they truly began.

Newsom’s office was contacted for comment.