Gavin Newsom admitted he never entered a formal alcohol abuse rehabilitation program after his affair with his best friend’s wife came to light, despite earlier reports suggesting he had.
The California governor publicly stated in 2007 that he would seek help for his alcohol problems, amid the fallout from his relationship with his campaign manager Alex Rourk’s wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk.
However, more than a decade passed before he revealed that he had never entered rehab, as had been widely reported.
The issue has resurfaced amid intense criticism from Newsom over his response to California’s wildfires.
In 2018, the then-aspiring governor revealed that he had stopped drinking for two years shortly after the affair, but was drinking in moderation again.
He credited his sobriety to the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco and its CEO, Mimi Silbert.
‘There is no rehabilitation. I just stopped,” he told the newspaper Sacramento Bee during his run for office in 2018. “There was no treatment, nothing related to that kind of thing. I stopped because I thought it was good to stop.
“There is no 12-step program here,” Newsom added of his time at Delancey Street. ‘There are no problems with that. There never was. This was a need to reset.”
Gavin Newsom admitted he never entered a formal alcohol abuse rehabilitation program after his affair with his best friend’s wife came to light, despite earlier reports suggesting he had.
California’s governor suggested he get help for his drinking after admitting to having an affair with his subordinate Ruby Rippey-Tourk (pictured) while he was mayor of San Francisco.
Newsom said he decided to give up booze after admitting to having an affair with Rippey-Tourk, now Rippey-Gibney, who was his secretary when he was mayor of San Francisco.
Newsom was also married to Fox news anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle at the time.
He revealed the affair at a press conference in February 2007 and vowed to seek help for alcohol problems a few days later.
“My problems with alcohol do not excuse my personal errors in judgment,” Newsom said in a statement distributed through several news outlets.
‘After reflection with friends and family this weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I will be a better person in my life without alcohol.’
However, his 2018 admissions change the narrative about the rehab, which had gone unchecked for years.
Newsom has come under fire again in recent days for his response to the Los Angeles wildfires, which many said was lackluster.
Many online commentators have brought up his past as further evidence of his ineffectiveness as a leader.
Newsom was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle at the time of the affair. He later came out and admitted that although he had undergone counseling and briefly gotten sober, he had never gone to rehab
The California governor’s past has come under renewed scrutiny as his response to the disaster comes under scrutiny
“Look, it’s not my problem if this guy has affairs and drinks too much,” attorney Laura Powell wrote.
“But when he has an affair with an underling, and when he misleads the public into thinking he’s turning a corner by going to rehab, it becomes everyone’s business.”
“While the mayor of San Francisco had a married Gavin Newsom, he was having an affair with his campaign manager’s wife! Gavin has always been scum!’ Another person added.
“Governor Newsom has some mental issues,” one person wrote.
“We cannot have a narcissist, self-centered, selfish, alcoholic and womanizer running our beautiful state of California. Who thinks Gavin Newsom should resign?”
Newsom claims he no longer has a drinking problem and is a partner in several wineries through PlumpJack Wines, the company he founded in the early 1990s.
The governor was recently left searching for answers after being confronted by an angry mother begging for answers after her daughter’s school burned down.
And in a recent interview on Pod Save America, he tried to shift the blame to Los Angeles officials, saying he “didn’t get any straight answers” when he asked about the response.