The Two Separate Lives Of Gavin Newsom Detailed In New Memoir

SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom writes successful his upcoming memoir astir San Francisco’s highborn Getty family fitting him successful Brioni suits “appropriate to meet a king” erstwhile he was 20 years old. Then he flew aboard their backstage “Jetty” to Spain for a royal princess’s debutante-style party.

Back home, existent life wasn’t arsenic grand.

In an yearly capacity for their azygous mom, Newsom and his sister would dress to find problems pinch nan fancy apparel his dad’s friends, nan heirs of ruthless lipid baron J. Paul Getty, sent for Christmas. Poor fit. Wrong color. Not my style. The ritual gave her an excuse to return nan gifts and usage nan shop in installments connected presents for her children she placed nether nan tree.

California’s 41st governor, a imaginable suitor for nan White House, opens up astir nan duality of his upbringing successful his caller book. Newsom specifications nan mundane struggle surviving pinch his mom aft his parents divided and occasional interludes into his father’s life charmed by nan Gettys’ affluence, including that time erstwhile nan Gettys outfitted him successful designer apparel astatine a luxury section store.

“I walked retired knowing that this was nan divided characteristic of my life,” Newsom writes successful “Young Man successful a Hurry.”

For years, Newsom asserted that his “one-dimensional” nationalist image arsenic a slick, privileged leader connected a way to powerfulness paved pinch Getty lipid money fails to show nan full story.

“I’m not trying to beryllium thing I’m not,” Newsom said successful a caller interview. “I’m not trying to talk about, you know, ‘I was calved successful a municipality called Hope pinch nary moving water.’ That’s not what this book is about. But it’s a very different portrayal than nan 1 I deliberation 9 retired of 10 group believe.”

As he explores a 2028 statesmanlike tally and basks successful nan limelight arsenic 1 of President Trump’s most vociferous critics, nan book offers nan Democratic leader a chance to constitute his ain communicative and reside nan skeletons successful his closet earlier opponents statesman to utilization his past.

A book tour, which is group to statesman Feb. 21 successful Nashville, besides gives Newsom a logic to recreation nan country, meet voters and beforehand his life communicative without officially entering nan race. He’s expected to make further stops successful Georgia, South Carolina, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The politician describes nan book arsenic a “memoir of discovery” that sent him interviewing family members and friends and digging done troves of aged documents astir his lineage that his mother ne'er said astir and his begetter smoothed over. Learning astir his family history, nan bully and nan bad, Newsom said, helped him understand and judge himself. Mark Arax, an writer and erstwhile Los Angeles Times journalist, was his ghostwriter.

“I’ve changed nan sentiment of myself,” Newsom said erstwhile asked if he believed nan book would revise his glossy nationalist image. “It benignant of rocked truthful galore parts of my life, and benignant of cracked things open. And I started to understand wherever my anxieties travel from and why I’m overcompensating successful definite areas.”

Newsom writes that his liking successful authorities brought him and his father, William, closer. His mother, Tessa, connected nan different hand, didn’t stock his father’s enthusiasm.

She warned him to get retired while he still could, worried her only boy would eschew his existent self.

“My mother did not want that world for me: nan shrewd matrimony of gangly husbands and gangly wives that kept each year’s Cotillion Debutante Ball stocked pinch children of nan same; nan gritted teeth down nan societal smiles; nan spectator athletics of who was successful and who was retired based connected so-and-so’s meal statement impermanent list,” Newsom wrote.

At nan bosom of her interest was her belief that Newsom’s “obsessive drive” into business and authorities was successful consequence to his upbringing and an effort to lick “the riddle” of his personality from his learning disorder, dyslexia, and nan 2 different worlds he inhabited.

“As I grew up trying to grasp which of these worlds, if either, suited maine best, she had worried astir nan persona I was constructing to screen up what she considered a ace astatine my core,” Newsom writes. “If my remaking was skim plaster, she feared, it would crumble. It would not clasp maine into adulthood.”

Newsom’s mother was 19 years aged erstwhile she joined his father, past 32. He learned done penning nan book that his mother hailed from a “family of superb and daring misfits who had carved caller paths successful botany and medicine and left-wing politics,” he writes.

There was besides concealed symptom and struggles pinch intelligence health. His maternal grandfather, a World War II POW, turned to nan vessel aft returning home. One nighttime he told his 3 young daughters to statement up successful beforehand of nan fireplace truthful he could sprout them, but stopped erstwhile his woman walked successful nan doorway and took nan weapon from his hand. He committed termination years later.

Newsom’s father’s family was afloat of much accepted Democrats and Irish Catholic storytellers who worked successful banking, homebuilding, rule enforcement and law. Newsom describes his paternal grandfather arsenic 1 of nan “thinkers down nan throne” for erstwhile California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, but his family ne'er held nationalist agency contempt his dad’s bids for nan San Francisco Board of Supervisors and nan California Legislature.

The grounded campaigns near his begetter successful financial and affectional turmoil that crippled his matrimony erstwhile Newsom was a mini boy. A divorcement group nan shape for an different contrasting beingness for nan would-be governor, offering him little exposures to nan wealthiness and powerfulness of nan Gettys done his dad.

Newsom said he moved casually betwixt nan rich | and mediocre neighborhoods of San Francisco arsenic a boy.

“It was a wonderment really effortlessly I glided because nan 2 realms of my life, nan characters of my mother’s world and nan characters of my father’s world, did not fresh together successful nan least,” Newsom writes.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and his dad, Judge William Newsom, person luncheon astatine nan Balboa Cafe successful San Francisco.

(Christina Koci Hernandez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Though William Alfred Newsom III went connected to go an appellate tribunal justice, Newsom’s begetter was champion known for his domiciled delivering ransom money to nan kidnappers of J. Paul Getty’s grandson. He served arsenic an advisor to nan family without salary and a paid administrator of nan $4 cardinal family trust.

The politician wrote successful nan book that nan ties betwixt nan 2 families spell backmost 3 generations. His begetter was adjacent friends pinch Getty’s sons John Paul Jr. and Gordon since puerility erstwhile they became for illustration his sixth and seventh siblings astatine Newsom’s grandparents’ house.

Gordon Getty successful peculiar considered Newsom’s begetter his “best-best friend.” Newsom’s dada helped link nan eccentric euphony composer “to nan extracurricular world,” nan politician wrote.

“My begetter had this measurement of creating a safe abstraction for Gordon to unfastened up,” Newsom writes. “He became Gordon’s whisperer, his expert and translator, a span to their friends, a span to Gordon’s ain children.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his sister, Hilary Newsom, successful a promotional image for nan Search for nan Cause campaign, which raises costs for crab research, connected Nov. 21, 2025.

(Caroline Schiff/Getty Images)

His father’s relationship pinch Gordon Getty exposed Newsom and his younger sister, Hillary, to a world acold beyond their family’s ain means. Gordon’s wife, Ann, and Newsom’s begetter organized elaborate adventures for nan Gettys’ 4 sons and nan Newsom children.

Newsom describes sportfishing connected nan Rogue River and riding successful a chopper while studying polar bears connected nan shores of nan Hudson Bay successful Canada. He recalled donning tuxedos and carrying artifact guns pretending to beryllium James Bond connected a European yacht picnic and soaring complete nan Serengeti successful a basking aerial balloon during an East African safari.

Throughout his travels, Newsom often blended successful pinch nan Gettys’ brown-haired sons. He wrote that nan character Jack Nicholson erstwhile mistakenly called him 1 of nan “Getty boys” astatine a statement successful a 16th-century palazzo successful Venice wherever guests arrived via gondola. Newsom didn’t correct him.

“Had I shared this brushwood pinch my mother, she apt would person asked maine if deception was thing I practiced whenever I hobnobbed pinch nan Gettys,” Newsom said successful nan book. “Fact is, I was ever alert of nan statement that separated america from nan Gettys. Not because they went retired of their measurement to make america alert of it but because we, arsenic bully Newsoms, paid changeless mind to nan distinction.”

Newsom wrote that his mother seemed to begrudge nan excursions erstwhile her children returned home. She raised them successful a overmuch much mean existence. Newsom describes his father’s beingness arsenic “episodic.”

“For a time aliases two, she’d springiness america nan silent treatment, and past we’d each autumn backmost into nan shape of a life trying to make ends meet,” he wrote. “After capable vacations came and went, a cone of soundlessness took hold.”

Newsom’s mother worked arsenic an adjunct unit buyer, a bookkeeper, a waitress astatine a Mexican restaurant, a improvement head for a nonprofit and a existent property supplier — holding arsenic galore arsenic 3 jobs astatine erstwhile — to supply for her children. His mother’s sister and brother-in-law helped attraction for them erstwhile they could, but he likened himself to a latchkey kid because of nan magnitude of clip he and his sister spent alone.

They moved 5 times successful 10 years successful hunt of a “better location successful a amended neighborhood” pinch bully schools, taking nan family from San Francisco to nan Marin County suburbs. Though his mother owned a home, she often rented retired rooms to bring successful other money.

Tired of his mother complaining astir finances and his begetter not coming through, Newsom wrote that he took connected a insubstantial route.

In nan book, Newsom describes his struggles pinch dyslexia and really nan learning upset undercut his self-esteem erstwhile he was an emotionally susceptible child.

Eager to make himself thing much than an awkward kid pinch sweaty palms and a vessel haircut who couldn’t read, Newsom mimicked Remington Steele, nan suave characteristic connected nan celebrated 1980s detective show. He chugged down glassfuls of earthy eggs for illustration Sylvester Stallone successful “Rocky” and ran crossed municipality and backmost for illustration a prizefighter successful training.

He recovered assurance successful precocious schoolhouse sports, but his struggle to find himself continued into young adulthood. Newsom wrote that he watched tapes of motivational guru Tony Robbins and heeded his proposal to remake yourself successful nan image of personification you admire. For Newsom, that became Robbins himself.

“Find a personification who embodies each of nan outward traits of personality, bearing, charisma, language, and powerfulness lacking successful yourself,” Newsom described nan accuracy successful nan book. “Study that person. Copy that person. The borrowed traits whitethorn fresh awkwardly astatine first, but don’t fret. You’ll beryllium amazed by really accelerated nan airs becomes you, and you nan pose.”

His begetter scoffed astatine nan self-help gurus and nurtured his liking successful business.

More than a half-dozen friends and family members, including Gordon Getty, invested adjacent shares to thief him motorboat a vino shop successful San Francisco. Newsom named nan business, which expanded to see restaurants, hotels and wineries, “PlumpJack,” nan nickname of Shakespeare’s fictional characteristic Sir John Falstaff and nan title of Gordon Getty’s opera.

“Gordon’s really inspired maine to beryllium bolder and much audacious. He’s inspired maine to beryllium much authentic,” Newsom said. “The risks I return successful business ... conscionable trying to march to nan hit of a different drummer and to beryllium a small bolder. That’s my politics. But I besides deliberation he played a immense domiciled successful that, successful position of shaping maine successful that respect arsenic well.”

Newsom described Gordon and Ann Getty arsenic for illustration family. The Gettys besides became nan biggest investors successful his wineries and among his largest governmental donors.

In an interview, Newsom said location are galore days erstwhile he feels his mother “absolutely” was correct to interest astir nan destruction of authorities and nan mold her boy stuffed himself into.

Gavin Newsom heads for his location vicinity connected Nov. 3, 2003, to formed hisvote for San Francisco mayor.

(Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

He described nan time nan callback against him qualified for nan ballot amid nan COVID-19 pandemic arsenic humbling and humiliating, though it later grounded by a wide margin. Still today, he said, there’s a sound successful his caput perpetually questioning why he’s successful politics, what he’s exposing his woman and children to and doing pinch his life.

By choosing a profession arsenic an elected charismatic contempt his mother’s warnings, Newsom yet picked his father’s world and accomplished his father’s dream of taking office. But he said nan book taught him that truthful overmuch of his ain much gutsy positions, specified arsenic his early support for cheery marriage, and his hustle were from his mother.

Newsom said he’s accepted that he can’t power which type of himself group take to see. Writing nan book felt cathartic, he said, and near him much comfortable taking disconnected his mask.

“It allowed maine to understand amended my motivations, my purpose, my meaning, my mission... who my mom and dada were and who I americium arsenic a consequence of them and what genuinely motivates me,” Newsom said. “There’s a freedom. There’s a existent freedom. And it’s nice. It’s conscionable truthful overmuch nicer than nan plaster of nan past.”