And, This Is How We Were Really Raised with Gavin's Sister Hilary

That is your correction, called out by his sister live on TV.

I've never doubted for one second that you always on my back.

They all think Dad left us millions of dollars, and if he did, I where is my money?

Everyone erupted when they saw you just cheering, and Dad's eyes started a water. I got emotional and he said, I get it.

This is Gavin Newsom.

This is hilarinious. Nervous?

Am I nervous? Yeah?

Are you nervous talking to your sister about your book?

Well?

What I'm here to fact check? Is it?

You're here? Factor? What do you think of the cover of the book?

By the way, you know what at first?

The truth?

Okay, I wish it was in color?

Wow? Sorry, what's wrong? You don't like CPI a tone?

I mean I think I'd like CPIO tone if I had to like a camera and was doing some old time.

What about the picture? What do you think of the picture?

I think the picture is good, that's it.

What about the they had to up a lot young man in a hurry? What about that?

I think I didn't. I think it's brilliant. It's actually actually brilliant. But it took me a minute to understand the title.

And to this interview is going really well so far.

I think we're done.

I think we're done, except for the color. It's interesting. We had four color options, but they looked dare I say slick? I know it's a word that never I wasn't sensitive to that, and so they said let's avoid the slick thing and went with the little spot.

I wish you had shown me the options.

No, no, there was maybe.

We could do a recall the book and then.

One with a puppy dog. Yeah, we did focus groups the whole thing, and that I ran.

Puppy dog. Please, I would have bought more than By.

The way, what did you think? Did you do you remember the otter in the book? I write about Potter, the otter my name, But you we photographs that we remember it better, right because we have photos before. Oh, you weren't even around.

I was in the belly. He nibbled on your toes way too soon in.

Because I have like actual baby photos with the thing with the otter. Yeah, it's a good point. You didn't exist.

There, no interesting and you talk about me existing then. I was just in the parts, but I wasn't in a human being. Fully formed human.

Yet so I write about because it's interesting. I did nineteen I've done literally nineteen podcasts alone on the book.

I've listened to all of them.

You haven't even read the book. We're going to get to that in a minute. Let's sad, I'm you have not We're talking about the book and you have not read it. You're not even half way through your First of all, you're doing the audio version, which at four x.

One two whatever, it's better with your it's actually nice and swiet.

We're going to get to that. But the Otter story, though, that was the most No one cared about that. No one's asked me about the otter.

You know what's strange. On my TikTok, I don't have TikTok, but on my Instagram feed now otters pop up. I've never searched.

It was the name of our otter, Potter well.

Done, and dad had to literally teach him to swim. Potter did know how to swim.

And no one believes that. So now you've validated my story unless we are both lied to, and we're completely so.

We have we have CPA photos.

We do have photos of the otter. Remember back in the day when you had like a chord and a telephone, and the Otter would literally jump on the phone to knock the cord off and then carry the chord over to you in the corner and then just hold the cord and you spin it, and then the cord would stretch out. You'd spin it and then it would start to walk around all dizzy. That was like the Otters thing.

Well, not having been alive, I'm not I can't.

Validate that there is spinning there. You see this.

Dad said that he would leave his keys half dang out because Potter would come jump up, grab the keys, hide him in the couch. That was like his routine. Maybe that's why the divorce happened. His focus was on the water when he got home from work and not all.

We'll talk about the divorce and how you created that. You started those conditions. You know, when I was around, things are going.

Fine, just me, and fourteen months later you were all hill.

Otter and I were just jamming, you know. Yeah, And at one I remember him so vividly. Thank god their photos.

It is about you being a savant, right, Yes, there.

Is a little bit about that. But one of the things about the Otter. Did you know that I was named after Gavin Maxwell wrote a book called Ring of Bright Water about River Otters, and that is why I included fact the whole part of the Otter story in the book.

I know all about that. I was very clear on that. And your middle name is Christopher because Grandma Jean, I didn't know this, wanted you to be called Christopher as your first name, and was good.

To nickname you taf tough for what like toffee.

Or tafer touf toufer tough. I don't know. I'm just telling you what I was told when we were little. This was not in the book.

Interesting Christopher was that that was what they were They wanted to call me. By the way, I was supposed to be William A. Newsome the third or tenth or sixtietheenth, Yeah, yeah, something crazy. They were like Bill Newso, Bill Newso, Bill Newsom, Bill Newsom, Gavin, I know.

And you were really upset about it for a really long time. And then I remember when you went ran and won for mayor. You remember that, and the newspaper, the Chronicle had in the biggest pont you could have right across the front, just the word Gavin.

Oh, I like that.

That's my point.

And did you that's a good little headline.

Of course I have it all. I just haven't gotten around to clipping it and putting it in a book for you. But that's maybe that's for your sixtieth But literally I remember calling you and saying, aren't you glad your name is not William.

Like Bill with the next utility? Yeah?

Yeah, you, you and you and I.

You're suggesting that that branding has helped build my that was one of the successes. It's it, that's it. I could have been called Potter.

No, no, they already had they. I think Potter predated you.

So when did you force our parents to get divorced? When did you create the conditions where dad and mom started to fight and the stress was so much he took off? Why did you when you came along? What were they? Were they particular attributes where they want to talk about that? I think were you crying a lot?

I think you have been crying, being jealous of me, that you made their life so miserable that they Dad said I'm out.

I'm out. But it is interesting how you came along. I don't know. I just really that didn't really right about this either, but it's like something that shouldn't be explored.

I actually have a question for you. What that we can get back to if you want, We'll do it now because I don't have the same memories here.

Okay, I got the editing on this show.

What are my royalties here?

By the way, you already this is pathetic. You want marketing your own like this is the price of you doing this?

And thank you? Wow?

Wow? So here we are? Is this when you found out this was televised? Now that you now you brought a product, took place, you know, just to pay and not a large glass of vodka. I mean, I thought this.

Is Vodkauy water.

It's water.

This company, we're bringing it to life in the.

Fall, a new product.

You too can have some legacy mineral water, American mineral water.

It's American miniwater. I will get back to the water.

How much you get back to things I didn't even By the way.

I'm not even promoting I should be putting all my damn probily. Thing I'm promoting is Trump's pads on my Patriots site available on our patriots side.

I thought Trump, I'd get the for Christmas. You didn't wrap them.

Well, those those are the new signature series. The old ones had sold out, just like all our law firms. You know, I got a whole thing. It's law firms and universities sold out. Corporate leaders. No, but that's in that school. And by the way, come on the greatest number twenty four Willie Mays and then look at those two people. You know that we're going to talk about that photo in a minute, but I want to continue this conversation. It's some semblance of order.

There's no order. This is chaos. I have to tell a really great story about Dad that you didn't put in the book.

And I was disappointing, Wow, disappointed with the cover. And now I'm disappointed you forced them to get divorced. But we get you're not taking any responsibility.

You're to my therapy.

You could pay for it with the product placement of legacy water available this.

So I was upset one night and I said to Mom, I want to go to Dad's house. And he had a pi a tear in the city, remember, because he was up in the.

Accent very fast, you mean, and he had an apartment in San Francisco.

Get a terror.

Who's the elite one? Why do I get that wrap?

So he had an apartment in the city. A mom, you know, it was sort of fed up with me, and it was probably fed up with you. But she dropped us off and at dad's apartment and what he had a second or third bedroom and it wasn't furnished well and I was kind of depressive. No, it was actually there were three bedrooms in that California street.

You remember that, Oh, I do remember that. That was an actual more normal apartment. Yeah, and that was you was supposed to live there more full time, right, yeah, right?

And so he I woke up the next morning. I think you were there too, but for whatever reason, you didn't need to have a lunch, because I guess you were at NDV then and they probably had a cafeteria. I went to French American bilingual school and they didn't. And I said, Dad, you gotta buy me lunch. So he took us to Safeway and he's like, what do you normally get for lunch? And I said, you know, a Boloney sandwich. So he buys a loaf of wonderbread and a pack of bologney, and I said, with mustard.

Apple please.

I am literally six or seven, let's say seven, for the sake of arguments, And I show up at school with the grocery bag.

And I take out the grocery bag and I dump all.

The contents out on the table on the teacher came up and say what is this? And I said, my dad bought me. It did occur to him being able to assemble.

It kind of sums up how we were raised by Dad. What do you say, boys and girls, here here's a bolooney is when.

I got home, we had groceries for the week.

So that's a good memory. See, I don't remember those early days because he was kind of I mean, so the what we do write about in the book, what I do write about is the fact that they did get They were separated when we were just really you know, a year or two after and then officially whatever the legal thing was.

Yeah, none of us can't remember.

And so he was a distant figure in those early years. Yep. And so for you to even remember back to your little to Pala Francis nonsense French American bilingual school again had a tear. I mean again, Yeah, that's the new sum right over there that we all should be talking about. But that's interesting you remember those things. I don't remember any of that stuff. Honestly, I don't remember any of those days.

And it's funny because I didn't remember when we did the nut tree drop off and that you would literally grab onto his legs and cry, screaming, and Mom, I just saw the I do remember he was probably thinking I got to get back to the fire for house for dinner.

In so this is when we got a little older. And I do write about that on I eighty and one's from California. You'll know that Stretch and our dad is living in Lake Tahoe, which is you know, three and a half four and a half hours to penance traffic, and so they would split in between San Francisco and there to sort of do the drop off with the kids. There was no joint custody. Mom had us full time. That wasn't even a dispute. Dad was like, yeah, good.

I know. You know that he initially fought for full custing, which is hilarious, But he did. I think despite her. I think just and Mom always told me she, can.

You imagine that, think of all the boloney. I mean, honestly, I would. I'd be in my thirteenth stint of rehab, yes, literally.

Living at Ramana's restaurant. I go, oh god, no, it's It's interesting because she told me that the only reason she divorced him because she loved him wasn't because he was never around, et cetera, but it was because he had financial problems after his two failed political campaigns campaigns exactly, and she didn't want to be tethered to that and she was sort of given that advice and that's why she told me she divorced him.

Okay, Well, she never talked about it with me, and I talk about the fact she never talked about the divorce, nor did he talk about the divorce. And the only way I learned about it and wrote about it in the book is I got that this Bankroft Library at u C. Berkeley, an interview with Dad and his siblings, and there was like, I didn't even no one told me about this. In fact, Mark Erics, who helped me write the book, said oh, it's so. It was a great I love listening to your dad, I said, listen.

And where you didn't know about that?

No, no one to the book. Okay, thank you for sharing what you know. That's great, brother and sister. Yeah, I didn't even care to tell your own brother about why our parents never got divorced. But he said he was broke and broken after losing the race for county supervisor and then state Senate and then just had a breakdown and just had to take off. Yeah, and you know, it sounds like that was it, though. Mom, I guess agreed to it or didn't pursue him because she didn't

She didn't want to be tethered to the debt because I guess Dad was in debt and she.

Didn't want to a myth. They all think, they all think that dad left us millions of dollars and if he did, where is my money? I did, where did you put it?

And take every time I finally broke into his safe and it was empty, and I keep I can't make it.

See, no one believes any of this, I know. Everyone just assumes that we're going to get to why they assume in a minute. And Mom the same thing. I mean, she legitimately passed with I think you got a lease in the car, and I got no. No, no, Mom merkstock or something, Mom like five thousand dollars stock, which I always kept five thousand bucks.

But mom, Mom left us an apartment because she always believed in buying property, which was smart. So she did leave us a nice apartment. Yeah. No, And then I took the car.

Sorry, I want to you did take the cars. I do remember the car.

I didn't even know it was an old Mercedes.

It wasn't all it was. It was one of those very It.

Was not a Ga. No, it was definitely a Hilary.

By the way, it fits for you, the Peditaire, the French Mercedes. Okay, really, this is like this book needs to be edited again. I gotta like update. So they left and so moms. Look, she was nineteen when she was pregnant with me and whatever, a couple of kids on her own, and she came from a huge abundance of wealth, right, I mean everybody she was quote unquote according to my friends at Fox, she was a socialite.

I forgot about that.

Yeah, she was a socialite, a millionaire socialite. I guess she is not an accurate picture of her.

She must have been a socially before she married Dad, because I don't recall the socialite, and I have a really good recall for our child.

Yeah, she was neither rich nor a socialite.

No, none of the above. The cutter ary, odd sort of upbringing. However, she didn't put any of that on us. I'm which I'm super proud of. Like we we barely heard. I mean, if it wasn't for Cindy, we wouldn't have known any stories.

Well, then I write about that. I just write about this sort of this house of secrets and learning. That's why I call it a memoir of discovery. It's not just that I go back and I'm like, oh, I didn't know this.

Even in our conversa, I didn't known. Is that true? Hillary? Is that? Did that really happen? I'm like it did it did? I was there, And honestly, it's interesting because mom had a really intellectual family and incredibly brilliant family, but so much dysfunction and talented I mean Grandma Jean.

Yeah I didn't. I didn't fully appreciate how objectively talented in terms of just all these sort of Stanford professors, doctors, you know, Elinas, Pauline's doctor, friends with Oppenheimer, all these stories that we bring to life. And and you're right, this deeply intellectual which I didn't really I always assume to his dad's side, because you know, he was were incredibly but because mom didn't share any of that, so you wouldn't really know. I mean, she was, she read voraciously,

I'm not a great reader. Rather, that's why I'm working on the book.

It's you haven't even you refused to read it. You're halfway through and you're at six x of my speed of my voice.

Yeah, no, I'm planning on reading it. I am excited.

Well, I'm glad you prepared for this interview about the book and what was accurate what was inaccurate in the book. But it's your opportunity to call me out. This is the got you see. This is why I didn't want to do the beginning of the book tour. I wanted to the end. So you can then just sort of scrutinize everything I said and say that's bs, that's not true, and then tell me, besides your hating of the cover, what else you hated about the book.

I don't use that word. That feels really negative. I was just.

Mild like it, okay, just like it appeared. Our parents madly disliked each other, so they got divorced, and he went up there. And so do you remember what of this besides the bolooney sandwich story? Do you remember any other you know, like dad in those first ten years of our lives.

I know you outed me as a badwater in the book. You got the age wrong. I was not thirteen.

Okay, well what did I say?

You said thirteen?

No? But what it was?

It?

Then? Excuse me?

Welve?

Oh? Sorry?

Okay, three days?

Okay, wow, that was right before my thirteenth. Oh it was okay, forgive me, just a major correction called out by his sister live on TV.

Yes, but I mean in and of itself, that's embarrassing. However, I did do the following and this is not this is not kind, but I didn't know I wasn't being kind at the time. But Dad periodically had girlfriends you remember up in that yeah, the country when and uh, I would go to dinner with them and we got home. I would, you know, at six seven years old, say oh, I want to sleep with you to the lady, to the lady.

Right, got some stranger, Yeah, like just a torture.

Yeah, no, I'm late.

You would do that?

Yeah, yeah. So Dad would go into into the other room and I'd get into bed.

Stop dude.

And it wasn't like a new day, like someone that I met three or four times, you know, and and I went the bed. Oh god, I'm sorry that.

Was wanted to share this.

Can we edit that?

No, it's too late. I'm going to add that into the paperback version.

Oh my god.

Can you And I'll say you were twelve at the time, thirteen when this started to occur.

No, but I remember that. No, that was like when it was six or seven. And I remember that the next day thinking, you know, that didn't go well for Dad.

Oh god, that back to no wonder they got divorced. Yeah, well, how could he handle that if you were doing that earlier?

Fel like I was intentional. I just remember those moments. I remember also a lot of time when we were with dad. There was never any normal you're visiting your dad. It was we were out at dinners. It was dinner ricos or ramonos orner, and it was a funderation.

Did you ever have dinner alone with your father? Because someone asked me not and I don't. I don't remember as an adult.

Oh a million times you did, well, because.

I never did, like by himself, like the two of us, really, I don't recall. That was like an awkward thing for him.

It's interesting.

So he would have you you guys, I guess would be able to do that, and then I would be the plus one or something.

Yeah, we did a lot, but really only in the very end, near the end, when.

He was with maybe yeah.

I'd get home from where do we go to?

Because he was always with a cadre of friends. It was always is And I write a lot about that and all these guys and Malarkey and Mallin and Groza and what we you know, these.

Always with Mallin and Gordon five days ago.

I mean, yeah, so it's like the same old haunts, the same yeah, like the washbag and getting a final final. You mentioned Romano's restaurant, you mentioned Rico's, all these great North Beach restaurants, which is so much part of the book and the lore of old San Francisco. But it was always around restaurants, It was always around friends. It was sort of I'd say in the book, I said that, you know, drinking and storytelling go hand in hand and

That I have. Yeah, I know it, and I think it's interesting because I always thought Dad never connected with domestic animals. But they did have a dog beer bomb.

Yeah, he was not much in the dogs.

Or No, it was a very you got.

You made me have cats growing up. Pickwick was that the name of the cat.

But Pinckwick was a stray that we just picked up. Pickwic just came in.

Wasn't my jam Pickwick? Now that's maybe why. And then we had Scoopy the dog, Snoopy. Snoopy didn't even make it up.

Snoopy could didn't. That was a heartbreaker.

A cocker spaniels, Yes, Springer spaniels happened.

So he ran out of the house.

Oh Jesus, I didn't write about that. I wrote about Snoopy, but I didn't know what what happened. This is the tragic story.

It's a tragic story.

Back to the paper.

He ran out of the house. I ran after him, and I said, bad Snoopy, and I, you know, patted him on the nose a little bit. And the mailman came up and said, you shouldn't hit your dog. And I wasn't even hitting, you know, just like a light tap on his dog. And he put his hand in to pet Snoopy, and Snoopy bit them. Mom got a phone call that night, I remember, and you know how Mom answered the phone. Hell, she had the British accent

I write a little bit about it.

We knew, we knew, we knew when dad was on the phone because she's got oh, okay, I went from But she got a phone call the next thing, you know, Snoopy was rehoused.

Rehoused.

He called it back then that's Mom said, there's a Stanley that wants to adopt Sniffy.

I think were you devastated. I don't remember being devastated by us.

I remember being devastated because I.

Was a young man in a hurry, so I wasn't paying attention.

You were busy tearing up our backyard. Did I tell you that I saw the house the other day.

Yeah, the house that we lived in that I described in the book as one of our when we moved to Marin in Corner Madera, this sort of smaller house.

Yeah, these red door I.

Literally had a white pick offence, like actual, real life like offense.

Yeah, it was like a dream. And I slept in the hallway. And that's all true.

Because it was a two bedroom. It was to you, go on, I got one.

I slept in your hall of course.

Yeah. And Mom got one, which was not always a course because we had a lot of homes where she rent it out where she was living in the living room, which we're going to get to a little bit about how she made ends meet with a father was broke and broken, uh, and didn't necessarily raise us nor financially supported us or her to the degree that she would have liked and maybe even deserved.

But she wasn't that way. She didn't demand anything, and when Dad had any money to speak of, he was good to her.

Yeah, he would try to help me. Sorry. Yeah.

I remember when on our way home from Dutch Flat, we were driving home and it was Christmas Eve or maybe the day before, and I said to Dad, did you get anything from Mom for Christmas? And I was with Robin. He goes, no, what should I get her? Because she really wants a car? And not kidding you, we pulled over at the Osmobile.

Oh my god, one nine seven TVH that was the worst looking, ugliest purple, purple and purple was old smobile?

Mom was I.

And the license plate one nine seven?

Don't know TV? How do you know that?

Because I have a weird memory. That's a weird and that's part of my little dyslexia, right, I have this weird things. I can't forget one nine seven TV.

And I helped to pick it out. I was like, it just has to be big enough for curple. So Dad picks this monstrosity. Robin drives it back.

By the way, is we go to Ay and Paul we my aunt and uncle Annie, Paul Robbins my cousin. And by the way, do you remember the Renault because you were so French at the time, the light blue, the light that could not get up the hill literally you had to go the engine. You had to go to the far right lane to get up the hill, to get up so you could go down the hill towards San Francisco. Going from Marin to San Francisco. It literally was going forty miles an hour, brand new, brand

Man?

That we were, we were rolling in it back. That was the one surprise was Yeah.

That was khaki or whatever.

Well you got that was the end of her life, you guys must have. Yeah, you had some windfall, you were. She was working for me, so it was making more money.

That's why she afford that. It was so bizarre you called her testa in every meeting. I called her because you.

Can't be in a business meeting, of course you can't, and then get hey, I mean that ruins the vibe. You got it like a professional operation. No, Mom, help us with the book keeping. No, it's like Tessa, why don't you give the report?

And I would say, mom, respect, it's respect to call her mother.

Well, that's a whole nother part. Who was again, young man in a hurry? So I was. You know, I

God, you know how much pressure that was on me.

I mean, really, why are you all complaining about yourself?

What was your issue having to look for you when I couldn't. When I got home from school in San Francisco, on literally on a fence saying he's going to do it today. He's going to hang my brother by his underwear from a fence.

I had someone say that you just made that up.

It's absolutely true.

I mean literally. So we're on Baltimore Street and there's the Bully of Baltimore. I told Trump this. Trump called me again. We have the new Trumps signature serious knee pads that are available on our patriot site. And so Donald Trump calls me right before you federalize on a serious note, the National Guard four thousand National Guard he federalized, sent seven hundred active duty Marines to Los Angeles. The night before he announced that he was moving with the federalization.

Sixth grade six six is when you were.

I gotta mend that maybe it was yeah.

Fifth, sixth, fifth and six. Yeah, no, I think by something. You know that you used to pay me. This is a true story. So we overlapped in school only for one year. Ever, you were an eighth grader at Cummings and I was a seventh grader because I moved from the French American back to marine.

School with the rest of us to public school to say, your elite education.

Yes, so you gave me a dollar every time I came up to you in the crowded uh you know, school yard to get away from you. I was wealthy.

It is amazing.

The way it started to occur to me that if I did went up to you, I was like, well I need I need a dollar back.

Then I would like making one seventy five an hour doing paper root.

Why did you not acknowledge that I did the paper?

It was your doing paper room two? Yeah, you start you were the like and then I took you.

I mean, do you remember the things because.

Again I hold the divorce against you. I just said animus.

Like sixteen inches thick that the Thanksgiving paper.

Thursday, well Thursdays Thursdays, because they were always the inserts, always giving Thanksgiving, and you'd have to have four rubber bands.

We had to get to Annie's and Paul's house and we were frantic. I mean, all hands on deck.

I think, do you remember how just black your hands were just going on this. They were sitting there in a stack right when you got home from school and you had to cut the top off and this rap rap get on that shwind bike. I had a pretty sweet swim, right. It was like, but that's all yellow.

It also needs to be corrected in the book, what you you got the shwind bike for Christmas?

Yeah?

Okay, you said you've saved up money, pretty flat.

I didn't know, not in the book, especially after you cost me a dollar every day and keep you away from me, humiliate me until you started to.

Like all my friends in high school.

Then you were like, well it was good of a younger sisters.

I think you went to every one of my proms at Branson away with somebody.

But I was not a dater. People think that I was not. No, it's like big time door brutal people like no one believes this, like total dork and you use the word dork. It's in the book how embarrassed you were around me.

You had a briefcase. You didn't have the hair jail down yet it was just like flat on your don't have And it wasn't just Pierce Brosnan. It was also Michael Douglas Gordon Gecko and.

You didn't have well that came later that skinned don't the looks of those two guys, the two of the best looking guys history.

And literally I was rough and I was dating yea, I was dating someone at your school and I was like, that's just embarrassing. Who is a soccer star?

But you know what it was that or the Dutch boy you know stride X, you know for my pimpoles and the Dutch boy thing, And that was me in high school. People don't they think that you had no.

Game in high school?

You so like legitimately except eventually in basketball and baseball.

Yeah, that was your your moment got me out. Well, that's the reason you didn't get beat up every day. But literally, you had like a couple of dates senior year. Okay with this girl?

And was it the basketball player talking about Sandy.

I can't remember name, but.

Sandy maybe that was. It was not Dat. It was embarrassed.

So you mom went through your room and I don't remember the context of it. Do we have to what we have to tell the story?

What story? And I don't want moms going through rooms?

She said, and it said, Gavin, thank you so much for the jade seal.

Oh yeah, oh, Pam, Pam and mom.

Went to the bookcase and the jade seal.

Was wanted her to like me. I stole mom.

Jade, which was probably a gift from dad. You see, and you think I caused the divorce if.

Pam, if you're out there, we diclosure of the family. I'm sorry. Yeah, I was kind of pathetic. There was a ja you remember it was a jades now I remember it was a jade elephant. There were two.

I've got the elephant and you have an elephant. But you broke up the pair. How does that feel? You need to sit with that?

That was the extent of my dating in high school.

It remember about the bike with the bananas and then Mom, not kidding you, Mom painted it red and gave it to me for Christmas.

The next year, you know, we had the Renault, your new red brou We had three roommates.

We had Robin, Rachel and Rebecca.

Robert Rachel, Becca, because we're just paying the rent. Mom can't payn the red people just another thing, literally hustling. We were running out. She rented out the garage, She rented out of her bedroom and is living in this living room because again she just has to pay the rent. For years and yeah, and I was working every day. You quit your job as paper girl.

Yeah, no, but I worked at the movie theater a Lark Lark movie theater. You're welcome.

You got discounts on popcorn, which is pretty good.

Well, and I don't want to because Lark is now they still.

It's a great place, but it's back in the day.

Now they popped their own fresh popcorn. But back in the day, I would find the popcorn up in the room and that the corner was nibbled probably, and I would ask my manager pour it in and she's like, you know their cigarette, Yes, I mean, and then you come to the movie. I'm like dunk at popcorn today and I.

Always we always had it. We always had jobs. My mom was working because she was working two three jobs literally all the time. Part time bookkeeper, she'd work for a Scott McCall Realty, she did Romona's restaurant. I started doing bus boy.

At because I got fired.

I was gonna ask, did you never work? You did?

I worked at Romona's one.

Youre responsible for the divorce the family. Your responsored for my bullying. Uh and paper we were done with it, which she was pretty flat and and you got fired, so you were that I got.

I got fired because I got fired for negligence. Maybe I spilled coffee, you know, the old coffee pots, the glass ones.

And she was a tough boss.

She was.

It was a woman, right, Yeah, it just came back Ramona. No, she was brutal. I remember she got me all. I remember working my tail off because you had to there. Yeah.

Oh no, she fired me on the spot that night. And the worst part is I had to wait for Mom to get off her ship to go home, even though I was fired, the best.

Part of her going home she bring back all those dam burritos.

That was why she did it.

She did, and Enchilada the extra.

Hundred and fifty bucks a week or whatever it was she made. It was Friday and Saturday night.

I got a bunch of food.

Her day off was Sunday, literally, and she sat in that backyard and she read on her lune and loved that. We were noisy all around her, and we were all around her on ping pong table. You were on your basketball court.

Yeah. Interesting, So she was just one day off a week week. That's true, isn't it?

And it worked Wednesday nights as the secretary and then Friday and Saturday nights. Is the wait is the waitress?

Yeah? And we it's it's it's interesting memory. And you so people, you know, I think we had a debate because I was saying how much assumption of macaroni and cheese I had? And you said, that's not true. You lived on you know, TV dinners.

Yeah, so we had hungry Man, pot.

Pie hunger The pot pie man lived on that hunger man, I mean lived on that. I forgot about that. And then the Lasan course.

But then also another big hit for us was wheaties and grape nuts mixed.

No, no, no, you know that's such ps It was sugar. Then you add the grape nuts, and then you just sprinkle the wheaties, and then you order it up and then you just drink the milk, which was just sweet.

See that I remember. I don't think that we I think we were only microwaves and fridge. I don't remember a mac and cheese.

I lived on What is your problem? It was? I moved up to the can where you.

Had the pre Whose memory do you try?

Okase? I didn't like the one you have to mix with the butter until they came out with the ones and that they had the aluminum can with it and you just squeeze it out, but you had to open it up and then man, right after school, get that, get my.

I was probably studying then. That's probably why I didn't have the mad was.

The wonderbread, which is the greatest wonderbread may be one of the world's You look back in life and there may be few things that were more meaningful than angel food cake and wonderbread.

I mean, angel food cake is the only cake to be had, although I remember it Dad's fifty.

No one likes a food cake and they don't think that. They think that's elitist. Too. It's like your French school and you're they don't think it's it's like a you really want to be relatable talk about your otter? Yes, yes, Do.

You remember Dad's surprise fiftieth birthday which.

He was old and he wasn't like actually embarrassing how old he was?

I know? And and said to me, like favorite cake? And I said frosting And she made him a sheet cake. His favorite cake was frosting cut into it and was so happy it was. It was a surprise party at Gordon's and we had the heck of a time getting him in there.

And someone made a book Harold called The Wit and Wisdom of William ay Newsom and handed out to everyone and in the book was all these empty pages of our fifty year old old man father. Embarrassing, embarrasing, I know. And by the way, everyone signed into that. I still have it, you do. Everyone left signed one of the books, and everyone wrote a great note. You know, I have to reread that. I should have read it for the book.

You should. That would have been a way I've never seen dads.

I never did a diary. It ends this this this very poignanly with Brooklyn and it's one of it's my favorite passage in the book. It's the last paragraph program.

Yeah, you need to read it all.

No, I won't because I hate you know how much I love reading out that. Did you do you remember when I yeah, this is Brooklyn. Oh, I love this last program beautiful and it's opening his diary.

And then I have read that. I read the last program.

Do you remember me reading because I crushed it? When I was young, you had you struggle with pretty severe dyslexia. I, however, was just I just crushed it academically. Yeah, do you remember? I remember?

This is upsetting to me. You you misrepresented my essay T scores. You told someone that I got like thirteen hundred. I got twenty points more than you. I got like nine eighty. Okay, let's just make that clean.

I'm actually literally embarrassed for you, like, not even figuratively. Actually I had a higher. I had a higher. I seriously literally thought of you much.

I went to French.

I'm upset right there. That should have given you, like an extra twenty points.

Was not in French. It was in English.

And your ability to conjugate verbs or something si relatable.

Yeah, because no, because in French, everything is oral, like they read to you. Hear it.

Why you got you got better than me? But that's embarrassing. Did you how'd you get in? How did you get in Doorstown? Then how'd you get it?

Because I spoke in French to the help.

See back to the Yeah, so you did all that stuff. You have better grades, You had pretty good grades. You you didn't.

Your grades weren't as bad as you say. I have all your old grades.

I have some. If you sent me those that shocked me. Uh that I was really I'm like, damn.

It wasn't just an a wood shop and by the way, was actually garbage. Can know that you made it?

Oh my god, that was good.

Seriously, have it at my house.

That was good.

You grade?

That was pretty good.

It's still around.

I didn't appreciate me as much as now, by the law of.

Comparison, that I could help you with your you know, your ego, because you're so fragile.

But I was, you know, I was you know, I was a little you know, I was. I was. I was very insecure and and you know, sweaty hands and you know the back, you know, it was not.

It was the haircut. If you had a cooler haircut.

You might have the haircut has been. It's the whole slick thing, do you do. I mean when people talk about they say slick, right, they're like guys slick. I don't trust that guy.

I don't think. No, I think maybe I don't know. It looks like everybody everything just as nice things to me about you. I know. But by the way, I took Jeff to the our old house the other day, I mentioned, and we went up the hill and I told them the story about how you took mom's four chairs. There was a yellow, of red, blue and a green, and you taped them all together and you rode the

Yeah, not her son's face.

No, he's less concerned. Jesus when you jumped out of the car when it was rolling.

I don't want to talk about that. I didn't put that in the book. I know that there were plenty of bad judgments that I did include.

You were kind of small, but I just remember we got home and Mom had bought licorice?

Was that was that in the v W Bug? Then I jumped out of the car.

I think it was.

It was a like like a sixties.

That was Dad's car. He taught me how to drive.

So we got we got the Renault, the what was it again?

The Alliance? The Oldsmobile Omega?

That was the purple? Come on, I know it was it was?

What was? Neither of those brands are even around anymore?

Are they? Not? For good? No offense? I mean, but Oault, there's anything better Oldsmobiles? That one was not that one. All that that was not that. That was when the Japanese were kicking our ail bag in the day. Yeah, I think we were kicked in the gear. We woke up as American automobile manufacturers. But what I got kind of kicked into gear too. Remember I used to take those classes every couple of days after school, and it

Yeah, I was super busy. It's just too busy. I wasn't being bullied.

I was popular, you were kind of popular.

I wasn't popular. I was. I was. I was friends with everybody. I was friends with everybody.

But you did better in school, you had it was easier for you. It was definitely easier. By the way, Dad, back to money, you just reminded me when he had money. So remember I was paying off the script for my student loans and they're like, literally was a physical thing and you pay I remember, I mean literally still have all this stuff and you pay all pay off, payoff and like my it was a birthday gift and he

At George Shown they required me to work on campus if I was on financial aid, So I worked in the library on all my stuff done and then went out later. But at Branson, Mom told me that I went to She picked Branson for me because she wanted someone to watch over me. That she knew I was too social, and she in a classroom of ten, they'd notice if you're missing. In a classroom of forty at Redwood, they wouldn't really notice, And so she felt like I

You as like the easy, smart one, but you were.

Definitely Let's yeah, let's let's leave that. Let's leave that.

No, I mean, this is this is interesting writing a book comes in, you know, this the memoir of Discovery sort of what's in the book.

You're out of the book Discovery?

So what do you since you didn't read the book and you're going to act like you did, what's your favorite chapter?

Let's see, Oh do you think of chapter fourteen? I liked fourteen.

Yeah, well it only goes to chapter what here? Yeah already, Yeah, it's eleven an epilogue. Well done.

I told you I read the book chapter eleven. I read the book. I read the book. You know, I read the book.

It's pretty well written, don't you agree.

It's beautiful, like no.

Bs like I'm really I begin I'm sitting an office men and looking at where you were. It's I like the way it's written. I mean, you know, it's not a politician book as one.

It's beautifully written. And there's moments of real pain. Yeah, there's moments of real heartbreak. There's moments where I wanted to fast forward it.

You were freaked out.

I read you the fire.

You are not happy about the stuff I put in this No, but you were really upset about it.

In fact, there were moments, But in the end I appreciated how you how you wove it all together, and how it's with the exception of a couple of little things, it's it's our life, it's our truth, and and it's important. As you said, I also had a different perspective on things. I remember after Mom died, I was really angry with you. We didn't speak for several months. I don't know if

A hurry that put a mask on. Yeah. I kind of wrote a lot about that. But when we so just on that. So it was almost twenty years ago, right over, Oh it's been over twenty I.

Keep saying twenty fifth an I kind of like, you know, it's one of the first. Yeah, so it's twenty one years twenty one years now.

So Mom passed away. She did an assisted suicide. We write about it in the book, or I write about it and write it. But you and I were in the room with her after the doctor, with the doctor and he who had a time when it was illegal, illegal and had the courage to do this and potentially lose his license. Mom had breast cancer and it had come back livery and the first time she got it, she was fine, and so I frankly took that for granted. And then I'm also running around doing my thing. I

I was there. I didn't leave her house for four or five days, and I was there when she made the phone call too, which right.

You heard her make the call. Yes, you never told me that.

I know well because it wasn't speaking to you, remember that part.

And the phone call was, hello, honey, it's your mom. Hope you're well. You should check in before next Thursday, Maymond, whatever day it was checking it will be my last day of life, okay, goodbye.

I was there and I remember thinking, yeah, that's gonna sting, But I also like, that's a voice message it because mom. Her body was gone, Yes, your body, her mom. Her mind was there, but she was skeletal. She couldn't eat, and she's like, can I please do this?

And I couldn't take it anymore. And she had like canker sores that were so bad because the treatment. She couldn't even swallow anything. Yeah, Like it was.

Such pain, Yeah, it was. It was devastating. And yet the whole thing was terrifying. It was so awful and unimaginable. And I'm fifty seven now, and to think she was fifty five, I thought she seemed older. Then you know what I mean, but right, but yeah, but I think I'm really loud. I'm proud of about my age because of that. Right, But it was so devastating because that's another thing. Mom had had a mammogram. You said it had had missed

Yeah, they missed it.

They missed it.

Yeah.

But and she founded herself too late.

So we were in there, and we're in the back of us.

So the doctor's there and he administers the first injection. Mom was holding a picture of us, a black and white photo of us. Yeah, beautiful photo of us. Yeah, and when we were little. And I looked at you and said, and she said, how long is this going to take? I remember my children and should not have to endure that.

I don't remember this. Thank you for that.

That was that, Remember, I could could barely breathe at that.

So that was when you.

And I and I waited a little longer until she got a little less lucid, and then she grabbed our hands and works of art.

Yeah, she said that.

You know what, I felt like we were like she We were super close to her. I was her best friend the world you know, every and and then I left. I looked at you. I said, you don't have to stay, and you said, I can't leave her alone.

And I just took off.

And then the weirdest thing is I went into the living room and I sat on Anne Getty's lap, poor Anne La.

For the last breast. Come on, man, and I, you know, I ware right about it.

I asked you to go, and you wouldn't.

I just I didn't know what else to do. And I was like, it's okay for you to go. I was like, I mean, my god.

Yeah. And it's interesting because I similarly didn't leave Dad's side. I was laying next to him for the last four days, twenty four hours.

He passed away shortly after I became governor exactly, and lived to watch his son get elected governor and didn't make it through the inaugural. You'll see little Dutch up there and the kids. I wish you my gush. But and I write about that, and this book basically runs up till about that time. It's not a book about my governor's race. It's again, it's all. It's everything going back, with one exception that transition, which includes Dad's death and then a little bit in the epilogue.

Yeah, no. And it was interesting because with Dad. I don't know if I told you this, but I'm lying next to him, and this is the night before he dies. He died. He died in the morning, and he kept saying Mom's name. The dad kept saying Tessa in the middle of the night. And I was like, Okay, I think we know where this is heading.

Ah that because I got there like an hour later.

Maybe not even I think you were there pretty quickly, right, you were there within fifteen minutes. Yeah, And then you and I sat in the room with him, and then you looked outside and that hawk like Hillary, look there's a hot out there, and literally like.

A Paragne falcon or something like. It was crazy.

And then you kept sitting there like like if there was a spirit animal.

You're like, Okay, now there's something else going on.

And you literally kept saying, hasn't moved, Hillary, Look it's doing it.

And it's never been there, no, never any seconds after Dad passes, but his entire history was going bird photographing, bird watching. It is obsession with birds.

And it did and you kept whispering it because I think you thought if you said it loudly, the bird wouldave. You're like, it's still their hell, and we sat there until someone came. Yeah, that was hard.

I mean.

The good news is is that you know, I mean, and I'll say this, you're you're in a hurry, you're super busy. But I've never doubted for one second that you always have my back. No, I love that, and it's we're so lucky for that, you know what I mean, Because these are things like even in that moment where I was upset with you, I with Mom, I really it really resonated in the book with me that I did read that you stayed focused on work because then it wouldn't happen. And I didn't get it at the time,

Well, I think it's yeah, and just I mean, it's just when you know, when you when you can't control something, you control what you can control, which is your work, and that effort. I just you need to try to compartmentalize, and so much of it like in this racket of politics getting just crushed twenty four. I mean like literally every you know this, you see what's like every ten minutes trying to just end, Like I mean, I want as I pick up my phone right after this and

Oh? All, I mean, uh, you know, it's funny because when Dad was in the hospital and we had to make the decision of do we bring him home? And we knew what that meant. And I remember Anne and Gordon running into the hospital and Getty and Gordon, Getty running into the hospital and uh, Anne grabs.

His best friend.

Well, I'm going to tell you that exactly that that sweet story. So she grabbed my hand and she's she said, you're mine, Hillary, You're mine, You're my girl, and you always have been, and you're gonna be okay and hugged me. And I remember that, Gordon, the night before dad died and you.

Were and by the way, that's saying something after you lose your mom and you know, and then you lose your dad, to have someone like that saying you know, I got you.

Yeah, She's like, you'll always your your mine, and you'll always always hear friend, You're going to be okay. And then you and I were sitting at the house the night before Dad passed and Gordon said, you know a lot of people say, and you have a version of this in the book, but a lot of people say they're Bill Newsom's best friend, he said, but I'm his best best friend. And that's exactly what Gordon Getty said so.

I write about them in the book. I mean, yeah, crazy King Wong, Carlos and just like right, but also like then just river rafting, like just camping and out there not clamping like legit out there like more rugged, more traditional stuff. You would you know that a lot of us get a win Obago type thing to do and then these crazy sort of you know, ten star not five star trips.

Yeah, and just always loving us always. And I think I was. I was much closer to Anne when I was younger, because she had the boys, you know, the four plus one, and me I was the girl, So I was I was so close to her. She was so loving. I mean she hosted Talita's Sweet sixteen, and you know, and Ciena and Talita both went to her school. And she was so loving to Jeff. I mean we

And when she died, she died years ago, and I actually it got edited out I write about the phone call it guy. When she died, it was devastating, devastating, devastating, like because that was what I didn't know she said that to you. But I always felt that with Anne, and she was going to be alive for the rest of our lives, and it was like, and she was going to be that. And then when she died, that was I was. It was a few years ago. I

No, it was devastating because she truly was family. And and you know, every time I had I was sick, or had a surgery or something always recovered at her house. She always looked out after me. It was our fairy godmother, our fairy godmother, and she knew, she knew how to behave with Mom, meaning she knew that we had to compartmentalize everything, and she'd always send me home though with

Want to be Mom wasn't part of those early trips, so that came later. This Mom was like that we would go on these exotic trips.

Before when she went on her friend the year before.

She died, so she was never part of that. And then she would watch her two kids go on these exotic.

Racations on a private to a private plane.

Yeah, privately, fifty one weeks a year or moms one week, we do this thing and we come back and mom would be, oh, I hope you enjoyed the trip, good night, and then never talk about it again. And we'd drag our bags and have to unpack, and you didn't want to talk about it. She was like the passive aggressive, I hope you had fun. I was here working three jobs. But I'm a grinder. Yeah, I like the heart work. I love the heartwork. I'm not a guy at doosanding. No,

I was twelve, and that wasting that that was a humiliating.

Well you put you, you.

Said, because you you out there?

He said, it was okay, And this is the bed wedding thing. But it's hard she want you.

Don't you know why it's relevant because you protected me and you made sure that nobody that's the that's the reason it's in there. It's not in there to make me embarrassed.

I'm glad it wasn't you know. I didn't know I was you never know like older brother.

Well, you were kind of abusive when we were really little.

You we watched a lot of it was going really well.

We used to watch a lot of cartoons when we lived on Toledo Way with Rachel Robin and Rebecca. Mom slept in the dining room as you as you noticed, and it has a wooden there was a wooden bed frame and then the just the bed sat in it. So but it was like on the floor, remember, so just like a box around them. And you used to take me and spin me around until my out of the socket. Actually did one of the times I fell at the corner of the bed. Yeah, yeah, you broke

I get it. You're saying that I was watching.

You were watching these influenced by cartoons slip on a banana peel. I'm like that sounds great.

So yeah, maybe it explains my four kids a little bit of grass.

That's the thing. Every time you're like, don't do that, I'm like, he did it. He did it ten times.

I'm raising two kids on our own. Now, that's brutal. I can't even I got a rock star wife and we have some help periodically, but how to including you that come over and help the kids and I'm like overwhelmed the kid in it. Like last night I had to go, I'm like, I can't do it.

The best part to when you left last night we read.

An event, an event with the speaker to be came Jeffreys and Nancy Pelosi with their house. What a homecoming and so you know it was a fundraiser for getting the congressional majority back.

Yeah, and Gavin announced it. You announced you had to leave because your wife was out a ton and you didn't have a babysitter. And then I looked at my table and I said, because the babysitters right here. I got a good laugh out of that. The truth. But you know, you know how Mom did it. A lot of it, A lot of they were very they.

Were big, they'very huge and planing. I write about Paul and both of them in terms of their influence. Yeah. No,

You know.

It's like we deserve it. You know. It's like, come on, hate me politically character and I played into it. I'm not an idiot. I've done a million things to play the type. And I write about that.

Yeah, I appreciate it, honestly.

No, And that's the thing I'm trying to like really scrutinize. I'm like, I get it, but I also want you to get that other people around me don't deserve to be piled into that. And so in some way, in many ways, it wasn't just about me telling my story. It was allowing you, guys, all the grace of your story, this space where you aren't characterized, charactertered as something you're not.

No. I mean, we've worked. And that's the thing I tell people all the time when they're like, oh, silver spoon, I'm like, why are you so angry that he's successful? Because he works so hard. You don't have boundaries. You

Know you like my shirt?

That is yeah, I think I gave you that for Christmas.

Your shirt, it's my new it's my new blue shirt, which is pretty much the only shirt that I will wear.

I was going to say it's blue or white. I was wondering we were going.

To come with two gears.

I was surprised im surprised you went gray. I thought maybe you would be like, you know, scary, you really.

Are doing this. I exposed my dipity do the first time I used you know, translution gel from Walgreens.

I got and I had to pay you five dollars to try and leave my strength to fit because.

I was wearing a suit. God, I was such a loser.

It wasn't a loser. It was an innovator. And you did. I was like, I was like, I was, You're an entrepreneur. You were an entrepreneur from the gate, like all those things, you know, those money making suits and ruined our backyard. But legit. And I see that in your son Hunter too.

He's always growing up with you. I love that. Yeah, I love that. I just got to have that entrepreneur mindset. Got to increase the number tries, try new things, learn from mistakes, be willing to make mistakes. Yeah, that's what your kids are. Perfect back a little bit and they say, I swear, I continue to go back to this just like it's the gift. Oh God, I'm so lucky because I can't do things the way other people can do it. Can't read those speeches. You have to make up for

It's so good you talk about it so openly, though, because I remember when you spoke at colmra to the Sacred Heart where the girls were going to school when they were in second and fourth grade. I think, and you in the head of school said what you did in five minutes. You know, these kids are dyslexic, could here for fifteen years through therapy and parents, and that you change like their mindset in a minute, in an instant.

It has been really important. I was so cool. I was just at the JFK Library, which, by the way, you can appreciate for me, for you, like, I mean, it's like a shrine, you know, Bobby, and and I'm like talking, I'm talking about the book. And then there was, of course, what's the best memory I have? This little kid he had a suit and tie on, and he comes up and his mom, he's very nervous, puts his set down. It's just I have dyslexie it too, and I'm like, I get down on my knees. I look

That's so important and that courage because it's courageous that you talk about all of your flaws too, And I appreciate it because in the moments when you were making mistakes and I called you out on him.

And all of them are in the book. Another reason.

My book's coming out soon and the rest of the no. But I would say that you know, you didn't shy away, and I think that's that for me. It shows integrity because that that's not easy to put out all your mistakes.

Well that's you know, it's called life perfection. It's a journey and I'm still on it trying to get better. We'll make more mistakes. I just hope it's not the same ones. With that, I'm not going to make the mistake of inviting you back to talk about some of those flaws. So this has been Hillary Newsome on this, Gavin