Ruby Rippey, the former San Francisco City Hall aide who had an affair with Gavin Newsom while he was mayor, has published her most detailed account of the relationship and disputed how he described it in his memoir.
In a first-person essay for Vanity Fair, Rippey says the affair continued on and off for months while she worked in Newsom’s administration and was married to Alex Tourk, Newsom’s close friend, deputy chief of staff and eventual reelection campaign manager.
Newsom devotes one paragraph to the relationship in Young Man in a Hurry, calling it the “stupidest and also briefest of affairs.” Rippey says that description does not reflect the repeated encounters she remembers or the lasting consequences the affair had on her marriage and recovery.
She also objects to Newsom’s statement that he “came clean” to Tourk, arguing that the wording creates the impression that Newsom initiated the disclosure even though she had already confessed to her husband.
Rippey Says the Affair Continued for Months
Rippey traces the shift in their relationship to a July 2, 2005, wedding at a Napa Valley estate attended by members of the mayor’s administration. Newsom was separated from his first wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and moving through their divorce. Rippey remained married to Tourk, with whom she was raising a young son.
According to her account, they later met at Newsom’s Russian Hill apartment, in a private room at a North Beach bar and at a Los Angeles hotel. “It isn’t love. It isn’t romance. It’s intoxication,” Rippey writes, describing the attention, secrecy and proximity to power as part of the attraction.
Rippey says she was struggling with alcoholism, returning home intoxicated and eventually using cocaine to continue drinking for longer periods. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, his memoir says Rippey stayed behind after a gathering at his apartment and describes what followed as the “briefest of affairs.” Rippey instead writes that their encounters continued “on and off, for months.”
She Says She Told Her Husband Before Newsom Did
Rippey entered a treatment center in Arizona on May 19, 2006, as her alcohol and cocaine use became increasingly destructive. She remained there for seven weeks and wrote two letters to Newsom, a formal resignation from City Hall and a private letter ending the affair.
Her treatment team advised her against immediately telling Tourk, fearing that the fallout from exposing an affair involving a prominent politician could threaten her early sobriety. Rippey says the recommendation never felt right, but she initially returned home without disclosing the truth.
On January 13, 2007, she sent Tourk an email admitting that she had been having sex with Newsom on and off for months and that the affair had ended before she entered treatment. Tourk left their home and requested a meeting with Newsom, who was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Rippey says Newsom repeatedly called her after hearing that she might have confessed, while Tourk waited for him to return to San Francisco. In his memoir, Newsom writes that Rippey disclosed the affair through her recovery program and that he then “came clean” to Tourk and his sister, Hilary.
“It reads to me, at least as a version of events that gives him credit for something I had already done,” she writes, adding that the wording leaves the impression that Newsom, rather than Rippey, first told Tourk the truth. The scandal became public on February 1, 2007. During a brief City Hall press conference, Newsom confirmed the affair and apologized to Tourk, his staff and San Francisco residents.
“Everything you’ve heard and read is true,” he told reporters, according to the Chronicle’s report from the time. “I am deeply sorry, and I am accountable for what has occurred.”
Kamala Harris Advised Rippey to Remain Silent
Rippey says reporters began calling as soon as the affair became public. She was newly sober, unemployed and receiving encouragement to defend herself, while a publisher offered her an advance to write a memoir.
Kamala Harris, then San Francisco’s district attorney, contacted Rippey during the fallout. They knew each other from their time around former Mayor Willie Brown’s administration. After Rippey explained that people were urging her to speak, Harris advised her to pause and allow more time to provide perspective. Rippey now describes that as the best advice she received..
Rippey also revisits comments made by Jennifer Siebel, who began dating Newsom after the affair and later became his wife. Siebel called Rippey the “culprit,” described her as “bad news” and characterized the relationship as “a few nothing incidents.”
Siebel subsequently apologized to Rippey and Tourk, saying she had spoken out of frustration while trying to protect Newsom and profoundly regretted causing additional pain.
Rippey Says Consent Does Not Erase the Power Imbalance
She describes herself as a willing participant who pursued his attention and knowingly made choices that hurt her husband. Her understanding of the workplace relationship has nevertheless changed since the rise of the MeToo movement.
Rippey says she initially resisted portrayals of herself as a powerless subordinate because accepting responsibility felt like a way to preserve agency over her own story. “Both things are true,” she writes. “I am responsible for what I did. Power does not distribute consequences evenly.”
Rippey says she is now 20 years sober and has built a lasting second marriage. She and Tourk eventually developed a close relationship as another version of a family, and she attended his wedding with her husband after Tourk told her, “We are family.”
The essay arrives as Newsom nears the end of his second term as California governor and publicly considers a potential campaign for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. A spokesperson for Newsom told People that the governor acknowledged his role and publicly apologized nearly two decades ago. The spokesperson said Newsom addressed the period again in his memoir and would not comment further out of respect for everyone involved.