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Disgraced ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff-turned lover Christine Beatty have spoken publicly about the four-year affair that landed them both behind bars. Kilpatrick is pictured giving his seventh State of the City address in Detroit, Michigan on March 11, 2008, two months after his affair with Beatty was revealed

Disgraced ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff-turned-lover Christine Beatty have spoken publicly for the first time about the four-year affair that landed them both behind bars.

Even after their liaison got them locked up, both Kilpatrick and Beatty spoke about each other with a sense of enduring love, according to John White, the Crimetown reporter who interviewed them both for the podcast's episode titled 'The Affair,' out now on Spotify.

They first dated in high school in 1985 but their undoing seemingly started with a kiss in 2001, when both of them were married, while cleaning up Kilpatrick's election headquarters after he became mayor of Detroit at the age of 30.

'You have the Bonnie and Clyde type atmosphere. Somebody who was willing to stay up all night and work with you and all that and order in, you know, get some takeout,' Kilpatrick said. 'And so we kissed again and eventually we started to have an affair over the next few months.'

But what started with a kiss eventually turned into city-paid security being used to cover up their transgressions, and the revelation that Kilpatrick was running a criminal enterprise through the mayor's office that would include extortion, bribery and fraud.

And despite any lingering feelings Beatty may still have for her high school sweetheart, Kilpatrick revealed she wasn't his only affair. 

What started with a kiss between Beatty and Kilpatrick eventually turned into city-paid security being used to cover up their transgressions, and the revelation that Kilpatrick was running a criminal enterprise through the mayor's office that would include extortion, bribery and fraud. Christine (née Rowland) Beatty (left), Kwame Kilpatrick (center), are pictured with Derrick Miller, a close friend from when they attended Cass Tech High Shcool. After Kilpatrick was elected mayor, he appointed Beatty as his chief of staff, and Miller as his chief administrative officer

The two dated in high school in 1985, when Beatty's last name was Rowland, while they both attended the prestigious Cass Tech in Detroit, which has since been torn down. When Kilpatrick went away to college, the two broke up, and that's when Beatty met her husband, Lou, who also went to Cass Tech and was a grade below Beatty and Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick is shown in a high school photo

Kilpatrick talked with White over a dozen times while in prison, and the reporter visited Beatty at home in Atlanta, so the two were never together during these conversations, including when Kilpatrick revealed Beatty wasn't his only 'other woman.'

'I had other affairs. This was not the only affair that I had,' he said.

'The overwhelming abundant part of that relationship was friendship. It was intimacy. A lot of times it was just, you know, can I lay my head on your shoulder? The relationship was so different because we gave each other each other's heart. And that's a different type of relationship because I've had both, unfortunately. I was not, you know, a faithful husband. I was a horrible husband in that area.'

Whether Beatty was aware of the others or not, she maintained that what she and Kilpartick had was special.

'I don't want to get into the full details of my sex life but my husband was my first, and my only, up until Kwame,' Beatty said.

'So the level of guilt — that I have fully violated, you know, my husband and my marriage — that was not a light thing that weighed on me. The whole thing was, "Oh my God we can never do this again. What the heck are we doing?" So it didn’t start like, "Hey, you know let's get it on." No, that wasn't it. You know it was, "We can't do this... we are trippin’," you know. There was always the guilt and this, this is wrong thing. Oh, but it does feel ... it feels so right but it's so wrong.'

The two dated in high school in 1985, when Beatty's last name was Rowland, while they both attended the prestigious Cass Tech in Detroit, which has since been torn down.

When Kilpatrick went away to college, the two broke up, and that's when Beatty met her husband, Lou, who also went to Cass Tech and was a grade below Beatty and Kilpatrick.

Kilpatrick met the woman who would become Carlita Kilpatrick while studying and playing football at Florida A&M. 

Kilpatrick met the woman who would become Carlita Kilpatrick while studying and playing football at Florida A&M. Kilpatrick (left) is pictured with his wife, Carlita Kilpatrick (right) at a Salute to Detroit black-tie dinner kicking off Super Bowl XL at the Fox Theater in Detroit, Michigan on January 30, 2006

Through it all, Kilpatrick and Beatty stayed in touch, and when he decided to run for mayor in 2001, she became his campaign manager. And they won.

'We had done something impossible. Everybody was telling me I was too young and then all the people that wanted to support me was telling me that she could not do the job. So standing by her and her standing by me throughout that campaign, it was just amazing,' Kilpatrick said.

'It came together in this dynamic moment where we were actually cleaning up the campaign headquarters. And we were looking at the river, overlooking everything. It kind of hit us both at the same time that we won this race. "This is crazy. How we do this?" It was -- so we were laughing, we were crying. And I hugged her and I kissed her. And it was like, "Whoa. What was that?" You know, because it caught us so off guard.'

Through it all, Kilpatrick and Beatty stayed in touch, and when he decided to run for mayor in 2001, she became his campaign manager. And they won. Kilpatrick (right) and his then chief of staff Beatty (left) are pictured meeting with The Detroit News Editorial Board, in Detroit on May 15, 2007, after their affair ended but before it came to light

And so the affair that the two eventually lied about under oath, and would eventually bring everything they had built, both together and separately, crumbling down around them, began.

'What I do know is it wasn’t some random affair. You know, I was in love with him. He loved me,' Beatty said. 'I know that he loved me. I’m not stupid.'

Kilpatrick certainly told her he loved her, in a  message sent between their city-issued pagers, which Beatty's husband at the time, Lou, saw.

Beatty described that moment, saying, 'I remember, I think Kwame had texted some message like, "Something something, I love you." It was ... something like that. And Lou read my pager. And he was like, "What?" And I remember thinking, "Oh my god. Like this is a problem."' 

Beatty tried to cover it up, but the damage had been done. 

'I mean, I was like, "You know, this is just like my boy,"' she said. 'I did as much spin as I could but yeah. Where my failure was, was that I let Kwame in that space. I became so in love with him and the idea of him, and there was really no coming back and you know for my husband, you know, we’re in counseling, where I'm not being honest. I'm being very disingenuous because I'm not revealing, "Oh, I'm having an affair." You know? And unfortunately my husband and I did get a divorce. You got the warning to stop. You got the warning to quit.

'And then when it blows up in your face to that magnitude, you know you can only blame yourself because you got the — you should have stopped.' 

Although his affair with Beatty ended, according to Kilpatrick, in 2005 when he and his now-ex-wife decided to work on their marriage (while she didn't yet know about his cheating), Beatty stayed on as his Chief of Staff for his re-election campaign and eventual win. The affair didn't come to light until January of 2008, when their sexual texting was uncovered the the Detroit Free Press. Kilpatrick and then-wife Carlita are pictured at at the Mayor's residence, Manoogian Mansion, in Michigan on July 12, 2006

Sending lurid messages over government devices may seem like an obviously reckless move for a city official who was married with children, but Kilpatrick apparently didn't see it that way.

'So you're talking about a guy who at 25 years old took the risk of running for the state house, and the guy who runs for mayor of a major city at 30 years old. Taking risks was normal. It wasn’t risk … it was just life,' Kilpatrick said.

And as far as getting caught for any wrongdoing, both romantically and legally speaking, he was similarly unaware of the consequences of his actions.

'I didn't think that far down the line. You know, did I ever see myself sitting in a prison because I lied under oath about an affair? No. I thought that like most men when they’re in this situation, I can handle it. And how wrong I was,' Kilpatrick said.

Although his affair with Beatty ended, according to Kilpatrick, in 2005 when he and his now-ex-wife decided to work on their marriage (while she didn't yet know about his cheating), Beatty stayed on as his Chief of Staff for his re-election campaign and eventual win.

The affair didn't come to light until January of 2008, when their sexual texting was uncovered the the Detroit Free Press.

'I remember our press secretary coming down the hall. He said, "Hey Chris, real quick, I just want to tell you," he said, "I got a call from (Free Press reporter) ML Elrick and he said to tell you that he wants to talk to you and Kwame. You’ll know exactly what it's about and he'll only talk to you two. And they're running this story on Thursday,"' Beatty said.

'And my heart dropped. I walked into the mayor's office and I said, "It's over."'

The two had lied under oath about having a sexual relationship, and their thousands of messages between each other over the years proved it.

'We just went into this dumbfounded look of, "Oh my God, like, we can't, there's no figuring out of this one,"' Beatty said. 

'We had to call up all of our office staff together, brought them into the mayor's conference room and the mayor said, you know, to everybody, "There’s going to be something coming out in the paper on Thursday, um, that’s going to be life changing for this administration." And I left out of the office that day and I never walked back into the mayor's office after that day.'

Beatty said she realized when Kilpatrick didn't step up after she pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and ended up with a felony record, that she was truly alone.

'I was kind of on this island, like I was this homewrecker. You know, and that's what happens to women anyway,' Beatty said. 'It's the scarlet letter, that's over. You know, it's the mistress, whore, I mean I think I probably was called everything under the sun. I wasn't some unmarried, you know, little peon, I was married, chief of staff, so he could have been the mistress too.'

She added: 'My anger with Kwame at the time, after it was time for him to speak on it, was that he didn't just own up to it and say that we fell in love, crossed a line, shouldn't have done it, hurt a lot of -- this is going to hurt a lot of people, but this is what happened … You know, we put that behind us. Blah blah blah blah. And so then I was left to cut my own deal. Two felonies, so that, you know, I'd have a felony record.'

Beatty said she realized when Kilpatrick didn't step up after she pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and ended up with a felony record, that she was truly alone. Kilpatrick (right) reacts to hearing that his court-ordered tether is to be removed and his travel restrictions loosened during his arraignment on multiple felony charges related to a text messaging scandal as his chief of staff and co-defendant Beatty and her attorney Mayer Morganroth look on in Wayne County Circuit Court August 14, 2008 in Detroit, Michigan

In the end, Beatty was sentenced to 120 days in jail, and after she served her time, she moved to Atlanta to restart her life. Kilpatrick was convicted of multiple federal crimes in 2013, related to running a criminal enterprise through the mayor's office, and is now serving a 28-year sentence. Kwame's ex-wife, Carlita, filed for divorce in 2018.  This booking mug shot, released by the Wayne County Sheriff's department on May 25, 2010, shows Kilpatrick during processing

In the end, Beatty was sentenced to 120 days in jail, and after she served her time, she moved to Atlanta to restart her life.

'I will tell you the hardest day in my life was the day I had to leave my children and go to jail. And we had tried to prepare the girls before that with the, "Mommy had to go away because — has to go away for a minute because she told a lie, you know, in a court of law and you don't, you can't do that." I was going to be gone for four months or whatever, and they were wailing, my oldest daughter was holding onto my leg, screaming, and it was, that's the thing … that was the worst day of my life,' Beatty said.

Kilpatrick was convicted of multiple federal crimes in 2013, related to running a criminal enterprise through the mayor's office, and is now serving a 28-year sentence.

Kwame's ex-wife, Carlita, filed for divorce in 2018.

She did not agree to be interviewed for the Crimetown podcast, but comments from her are included in the episode, as excerpted from the documentary film, 'KMK: A Documentary of Kwame Kilpatrick.'

The entire podcast episode is available to listen now, on Spotify. 

Kilpatrick is pictured leaving  US District Court after he was convicted on federal racketeering and other charges in Detroit, Michigan, on March 11, 2013