A California political scandal that first made headlines in 2007 has resurfaced this week, driven by a first-person account from the woman at its center.
Ruby Rippey published a personal essay in Vanity Fair on Tuesday, offering her own detailed version of events surrounding her affair with then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
At the time of the affair, Rippey held the position of appointments secretary under Newsom. Her husband, Alex Tourk, simultaneously served as Newsom’s campaign manager.
Perhaps the most striking revelation in the essay involves Kamala Harris, who was San Francisco’s District Attorney when the scandal broke.
Rippey wrote that Harris reached out privately to offer guidance during the fallout.
According to Rippey, Harris advised her against speaking publicly or pursuing a book deal in the immediate aftermath.
Rippey recalled the exchange in the essay: “She listens, then says simply: ‘I wouldn’t say anything right now, Ruby. Just pause. More time will give you better perspective.’”
Beyond the Harris revelation, Rippey used the essay to push back against Newsom’s own retelling of events in his memoir.
She took issue with his claim that he was the party who “came clean” to Tourk, arguing that she had already confessed the affair to her husband before that conversation took place.
Rippey recounted asking a Newsom advisor point-blank whether the governor’s memoir was truthful. The advisor’s reply, according to Rippey: “Well, we all remember things differently, don’t we, Ruby?”
The essay walks readers through the origins of the affair, which Rippey says began during her tenure at City Hall. She described a pattern of encounters — time together in a hot tub, overnight stays in hotels, and visits to Newsom’s penthouse on Russian Hill.
One passage details a specific trip to The Carneros Inn. Rippey wrote, “The next clear memory is getting into the back of my boss’s chauffeured town car, heading to The Carneros Inn.”
She elaborated on the ride itself: “I stretch my legs across the center console and let my heels fall off. He is in the front seat. He takes one of my feet and begins to massage it, the gesture half-hidden inside the loud car.”
Rippey described waking up next to Newsom the morning after, noting that the affair persisted for several months.
She characterized the underlying dynamic in candid terms: “We meet and we drink. There is sex, but it isn’t the point. The point is proximity — to power, to being chosen, to feeling newly visible — no longer muted by pregnancy, by new motherhood, by the strain of white-knuckling long stretches of sobriety.”
A separate memory from the essay centers on a comment Newsom made following the birth of Rippey’s first child.
During a meal at a Mexican restaurant, she says he told her, “Hey — you look really good … You’ve lost all your pregnancy weight.”
Rippey was candid about her own agency in the affair, writing that she entered it willingly.
She noted, however, that hindsight altered her perspective on the imbalance of power involved, writing that “power does not need to coerce. It only needs to exist.”
The affair became public knowledge after Rippey informed her husband via email, prompting Tourk to confront Newsom directly and resign from the campaign on the spot.
Newsom publicly admitted to the affair during a 2007 news conference shortly afterward. He also revealed at that time that he intended to seek treatment for alcohol abuse.
Rippey’s essay extends beyond the affair itself, chronicling her subsequent struggle with alcoholism, the dissolution of her marriage, and her long road toward sobriety in the years that followed.
Fox News Digital obtained a statement from a Newsom spokesperson responding to the essay’s publication. The statement read, “The Governor acknowledged his role and publicly apologized nearly two decades ago when he was still mayor.”
The spokesperson noted that Newsom has since remarried, started a family, and shifted his focus toward his official duties.
The statement concluded that Newsom “addressed this chapter of his life, including in his memoir, and out of respect for everyone involved, does not have anything further to add.”
As of publication, neither Harris nor any representative on her behalf has issued a public response to the claims detailed in Rippey’s essay.
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