Newsom Responds To Rippey’s Claims After Ex-Mistress Goes Public

The essay, published in Vanity Fair by Ruby Rippey (now Gibney), revisits the scandal that nearly derailed Newsom’s political career when he was San Francisco mayor.

Rippey, who worked as Newsom’s appointments secretary, describes how professional boundaries collapsed amid her struggles with alcohol and cocaine addiction.

She writes that she would scan his calendar for openings, appear at locations where he was expected, and wait for texts asking “Where are you?”

Encounters followed at his Russian Hill penthouse, a private room in a North Beach bar, and the W Hotel in Los Angeles.

Rippey portrays the relationship not as romance but as “another form of intoxication” fueled by proximity to power and the feeling of being chosen.

She details the first encounter after wearing a strapless white dress to a City Hall staffer’s wedding on July 2, 2005, and later passionate meetings, including one in which she ripped every button from Newsom’s shirt.

All encounters, she emphasizes, were consensual, even those she was too intoxicated to fully remember.

At the time, Rippey was married to Newsom’s close friend and top aide Alex Tourk, who was running the mayor’s re-election campaign.