In the mid-2000s, Donald Trump Jr.‘s reported new love interest, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, became embroiled in an infidelity scandal after it was revealed that her then-husband, now Lt. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, had cheated on her with the wife of his campaign manager.
In 2005, Guilfoyle’s career as a broadcast journalist was taking off and she was splitting time between New York City and San Francisco, where she and Newsom reigned as the popular first lady and mayor of the Golden Gate City.
But behind the facade of a happy marriage, San Francisco’s handsome young mayor, then 39, was keeping a dark secret. He was having an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his then-campaign manager and former deputy chief of staff, Alex Tourk.
Guilfoyle, a former prosecutor in San Francisco and Los Angeles who’s now the 49-year-old co-host of Fox News’ The Five, married Newsom in 2001 and filed for divorce in January 2005, citing the strain of a bi-coastal marriage. It’s unclear if she knew about the affair before the scandal broke in 2007.
The affair, first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle in February 2007, took place in late 2005 while Rippey-Tourk, then 34, worked as Newsom’s appointments secretary, and while Newsom and Guilfoyle were in the throes of divorce.
“Everything you’ve heard and read is true,” Newsom, a Democrat, told reporters during a news conference at the time. “And I am deeply sorry about that.”
“I’ve hurt someone I care deeply about, Alex Tourk,” the mayor added. “And that is something I have to live with.”
Rippey-Tourk’s then-husband, who was Newsom’s former deputy chief of staff and a close friend, had resigned a day earlier, after his wife confessed to her relationship with Newsom as part of rehabilitation for a substance-abuse problem, The New York Times reported in 2007.
After their divorce was finalized in February 2006, Guilfoyle married her second husband, furniture heir Eric Villency, later that same year. The couple, who share son Ronan, divorced in 2009.
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Guilfoyle has not publicly commented much on her marriage with Newsom, but in 2014 she recalled her time as San Francisco’s first lady fondly to PEOPLE.
Guilfoyle, who was married to Newsom during his first two years as mayor, from 2004 to 2006, once hosted Prince Charles and wife Camilla when they visited San Francisco.
“I spent three days with them and it was a wonderful experience,” Guilfoyle told PEOPLE.
Newsom, who was elected lieutenant governor of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014 and who is now running for governor of the state, was recently asked about his past indiscretions in light of the #MeToo movement.
“I would say the same thing that I said (then) to the voters in San Francisco: that I acknowledged it. I apologized for it. I learned an enormous amount from it,” Newsom, now 50, said in February during an onstage interview at the University of San Francisco, according to SFGate. “And I am every day trying to be a champion and a model — not just for women and girls — but to deal with the issue that we need to focus on, which is the crisis with men and boys in this state and in this country.”
Meanwhile, Guilfoyle has been romantically linked to the president’s eldest son, 40, who is in the midst of a high-profile divorce from wife Vanessa.
Trump Jr. recently became embroiled in his own infidelity drama after Page Six reported that he had an affair with former Celebrity Apprentice contestant Aubrey O’Day in 2012. Trump Jr. has neither confirmed nor denied the affair.
According to Page Six, Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle have been dating for a few weeks.
The pair were seen arriving together at a party in New York City on Sunday evening for President Trump’s new ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell. After the party, Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle left together and went to a late dinner at Harry Cipriani restaurant on Fifth Avenue.
Reps at Fox News and the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
