Gavin Newsom and His Wife Met Three Months After a Controversial Affair Was Revealed

California Governor Gavin Newsom has strong ties to the state he oversees and, in particular, to the city of San Francisco. He is a fourth-generation San Franciscan whose father was a state appeals court judge and whose grandfather was a professor of medicine at Stanford University. Regarding his political pedigree, Gavin's aunt is married to Ron Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's brother-in-law. It was almost a foregone conclusion that Gavin was going to go into politics.

Although Gavin's lineage is robust, his childhood was marked by divorce. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, his dad was in his thirties when he met his mom, who was 19 and working as a lifeguard in Tahoe. They were married long enough to have two kids. Bill Newsom told the outlet that he was a much better ex-husband than husband. His son followed in his footsteps after he divorced Kimberly Guilfoyle in 2006. Yes, that Kimberly Guilfoyle. Did he get married again? Here's what we know.

In July 2008, a perfunctory announcement in the Los Angeles Times lightly detailed the marriage of Gavin to actor Jennifer Siebel at her parents' Montana ranch near Stevensville. They planned on honeymooning in Africa. The couple got engaged in January 2008 after meeting on a blind date at the Artists Ball at Yerba Buena Center in October 2006, per the SF Gate. A mutual friend set them up.

Another friend, famed event designer Stanlee Gatti, told the outlet that he believed Gavin and Jennifer were made for each other. "You know the kind of thing where people finish each other's sentences? They do. Yet they're respectful of each other. They're pretty in sync with the way they feel about some things."

Despite how quickly they clicked, Jennifer revealed that she knew nothing about Gavin before the two met. She was going on this date because her parents approved, and she was told they were politically aligned. "We had so much in common, we were blown away," she gushed. Maybe it was this connection that propelled them through some controversy early on in the relationship.

In February 2007, Gavin's deputy chief of staff confronted the then-San Francisco mayor about an affair he was having with the staff member's wife. Alex Tourk's wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, told her husband about the affair as part of her "rehabilitation program she had been undergoing for substance abuse," per the .

Ruby worked for Gavin as his appointments secretary from the start of his administration in January 2004 until the spring of 2007. The affair occurred while Gavin was divorcing Kimberly and didn't last long. After speaking with Gavin directly, Alex resigned. "I am honored that, as deputy chief of staff, I helped create and implement key policy initiatives such as the Homeless Connect program," he said in his resignation statement while refusing to comment on the affair.

As of May 2022, Alex was working at San Francisco Connect as the nonprofit's chief development person, reported the San Francisco Examiner. This organization oversees Gavin's Homeless Connect program that Alex helped create. Alex and Ruby divorced in 2008. A decade later, Ruby spoke with the Los Angeles Times about the affair, saying that while it destroyed her home life, it should not be swept up in the MeToo movement as she was a 33-year-old adult at the time.