- Gov. Newsom says his candid February autobiography will put details “all out there,” expressing nervousness about public reaction to personal revelations.
- The memoir arrives as Newsom considers a 2028 presidential bid, offering a chance to introduce himself to voters.
- Newsom’s visit to the DNC meeting was one of his rare public events since news broke that his former chief of staff was arrested on federal corruption charges.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he is nervous about the public response to his forthcoming autobiography’s candid details about his life and those around him.
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“Just being honest — it comes with a cost,” said Newsom, who made the rounds at a Democratic National Committee meeting in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Newsom, who already acknowledged that he is considering a 2028 bid for president, said he didn’t hold back in the book. His co-writer, former Los Angeles Times reporter Mark Arax, told the governor that he wouldn’t be a part of the project unless Newsom was forthcoming.
“And then you read stuff and [wonder] ‘Oh, how’s this going to read?’” said Newsom, who expects that conservative commentators will attack him over some passages.
“This is not a politician’s book, it’s not a book that you would expect me” to write, he said.
“It’s all out there.”
Many of the turbulent and personally traumatic chapters of the California politician’s life are already well-documented. In 2007, Newsom, then mayor of San Francisco, acknowledged that he had an affair with the wife of a longtime aide.
Newsom’s mother, Tessie Newsom, ended her life in 2002 at age 55 through assisted suicide after a long fight with breast cancer.
The governor has also talked about growing up watching his mother struggle to make ends meet, and how oil executive Gordon Getty and his wife, Ann, gave him experiences his parents could not afford, including an African safari when he was a teen.
It’s the third book for Newsom and comes at a pivotal time. Not only is the California governor considering a White House run, he’s become a persistent foil to President Trump and vocal critic to his controversial policies, including the administration’s immigration raids in Los Angeles and failure to provide adequate federal assistance to California wildfire victims.
A promotional book tour would offer a chance to meet with voters in swing states and to appear on a range of media platforms. A memoir specifically allows the governor to reintroduce himself on his own terms at a moment when national interest in his political future is growing.
Newsom’s visit to the DNC meeting was one of his few public events since news broke that his former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, was arrested on federal corruption charges.
Williamson’s attorney McGregor Scott, a former U.S. attorney in Sacramento, told The Times in November that federal authorities had approached Williamson more than a year ago seeking help with some kind of investigation of the governor. Newsom has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Some aspects of the case described in the Williamson indictment match that of a controversial sex discrimination investigation that the state of California led into one of the world’s largest video game companies, Santa-Monica based Activision Blizzard Inc.
Newsom told The Times on Thursday that he doesn’t know whether the U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the state’s handling of the Activision case.
