California’s ‘First Partner,’ Jennifer Siebel Newsom, made headlines last week when she interrupted her husband’s press conference to urge reporters to focus more on the nation’s pressing ‘war on women.’
Siebel Newsom stood by her husband, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is considered a potential Democratic contender for the 2028 presidential race, during an event centered on Planned Parenthood, before she seized the podium.
“This happens over and over and over again. You wonder why we have such a horrific war on women in this country, and that these guys are getting away with it. Because you don’t seem to care,” Siebel Newsom remarked.
She concluded with, “So I just offer that – with love,” which elicited laughter from the audience.
A recent profile in Marie Claire sheds light on Siebel Newsom’s determination to amplify women’s voices.
Siebel Newsom has spoken openly about her experience testifying against powerhouse producer Harvey Weinstein, recounting in a 2022 courtroom how he raped her in a hotel room in 2005 during her acting career.
The allegations were made long past the statute of limitations, but prosecutors believed her testimony could bolster the accounts of other victims, so she went forward with it.
‘I couldn’t believe what the defense attorneys got away with,’ she told Marie Claire. ‘I couldn’t believe the way they treated me. I couldn’t believe what they called me in the courtroom.’
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s (left) wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom (right) has been in the spotlight this week after she shamed reporters at a Planned Parenthood-themed event for not asking questions that were on topic
Jennifer Siebel Newsom (right) the wife of potential 2028 presidential candidate, Governor Gavin Newsom (left), spoke to Marie Claire for a feature this month where she talked about her childhood and adulthood trauma in an attempt to soften her image
Her husband, by this point, was the governor of California.
She said the experience revealed to her ‘the myriad of ways we silence women’s voices’ and said it fueled her to ‘create policies and a culture that can hear women, that can believe women.’
‘In different forms, I’ve experienced various traumas in my life,’ she continued. ‘But I refused – refused to be suffocated by it.’
Another such trauma was the loss of her 8-year-old sister Stacey, which occurred just days before her 7th birthday.
Stacey was killed in a golf cart accident while the family was vacationing in Hawaii.
‘I think my mom and dad were in so much pain,’ she told Marie Claire, ‘and they couldn’t be there for me.’
‘When we lost Stacey, I somehow was held up by all these women,’ she continued. ‘I think that’s what trauma does, and sexual assault does, and losing my sister did, is you feel very alone.’
‘What gives me hope, though, is the sisterhood – all the angel women around me who are in this with me,’ she added.
Jennifer Siebel, 51, took the stand and scolded reporters for asking the ‘wrong’ questions at a news conference last week – a moment that got the attention of conservatives eager to use her against her husband politically
Actor Dean Cain, a conservative commentator, called Siebel Newsom ‘INCREDIBLY unlikeable!’ in a Valentine’s Day post, pointing to comments she made about tech titans going MAGA
Governor Gavin Newsom (left) and Jennifer Siebel Newsom (right) are photographed with then President Joe Biden in November 2023
Even with giving her press conference podium grab some context, conservatives are chomping at the bit to use Siebel Newsom against her husband politically.
‘She’s INCREDIBLY unlikeable!’ conservative actor Dean Cain commented on Saturday, highlighting a clip where Siebel Newsom was bashing MAGA tech executives, saying they spent too much time in a ‘bubble of wealth.’
Still, Siebel Newsom appeared ready for her husband to launch a presidential bid.
‘It feels really early, but it also feels important to stand up to what’s happening in our country,’ she told Marie Claire. ‘And so obviously I’m supportive of that.’
While not specifically throwing around the term ‘First Lady’ she told the magazine what ‘an incredible platform’ that could bring to push a women-friendly agenda forward.
She added that what happens in 2028 is ‘ultimately a family decision,’ though her husband said in October he’d be ‘lying’ if he didn’t publicly suggest he was thinking about it.
He has a book coming out next week – a telltale sign of presidential ambitions.
Beyond Siebel Newsom, the California governor’s colorful dating history will likely be dragged into a potential 2028 campaign.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom attend a dinner in 2023. She started dating the California governor in 2006, after being set up by friends on a blind date
Jennifer Siebel Newsom (left) and then Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom (right) wave to supporters at an election night event in November 2018 – an election Newsom won
He’s the ex-husband of Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is now serving as the U.S. ambassador to Greece.
Newsom and Guilfoyle separated in January 2005.
That same year, he carried on an affair with Ruby Rippey Gibney, the wife of his campaign manager, which became public knowledge in 2007.
At the time of the brewing scandal, Newsom said he was going to seek ‘alcohol treatment,’ though later clarified that he never went to rehab and instead it was a ‘reset.’
Before meeting Siebel Newsom in 2006, he briefly dated 19-year-old Brittanie Mountz.
Newsom was 38.
He was set up with Siebel Newsom, who briefly dated actor George Clooney, by a mutual friend.
He told Marie Claire that his future wife showed up ‘an hour, two, three late’ to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for their first meeting – and that he expected the encounter to go nowhere.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (left) and Jennifer Siebel Newsom (right) attend an event in Dos Rios, California in April 2024
‘There’s a reason it’s a cliché – because it’s true and it’s so universal – but it was at a time when the last thing I was really thinking about was finding someone I would end up with, or even someone that I would date,’ Newsom told the magazine.
But the two just clicked, with the governor saying that it was so ‘comfortable and conversational’ as they traced their ‘concentric circles of friends.’
The date went so well that Siebel Newsom accidentally slept over.
The governor recalled to Marie Claire that when his future wife went to get her car from the parking garage, she found it locked.
‘So she was forced to spend – a very platonic night, for the record – with this stranger,’ he said, ‘the mayor, at the time, of San Francisco.’
