Rich Kid Gavin Newsom Cosplays As A Scrappy Poor Kid

Gavin Newsom wants you to believe that he is defined by growing up lower-middle class and spending his childhood eating frozen lasagna and Wonder Bread. That’s the story he spins in his new book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, which was published Tuesday.  

This is a truly laughable angle. Gavin Newsom has lived an incredibly charmed life. Browbeating the public into believing otherwise is going to require countering significant evidence to the contrary.  

The most important thing to understand about Newsom’s upbringing is that, for all intents and purposes, he grew up as the son of a multibillionaire. Gordon Getty, the 92-year-old oil heir, has made no secret of the fact that he has long considered Newsom to be his own son. Newsom likes to claim these days that his relationship with Getty amounted to occasional childhood trips to faraway places like Africa and the Hudson Bay, from which he returned to a very different world in his mother’s “little gray house” in the modest suburb of Corte Madera. Newson writes in Young Man in a Hurry of his mother’s reaction to these trips: “For a day or two, she’d give us the silent treatment, and then we’d all fall back into the form of a life of trying to make ends meet.” 

But Newsom didn’t just receive luxury vacations from his relationship with Getty. Far from it. Newsom’s role as a Getty in all but name positioned him as one of the most elite members of San Francisco society. As I chronicle in my book, Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power, Newsom spent his twenties as a princely figure on San Francisco’s social scene, frequenting the bars and mansions of the elite and dating the debutants of high society. The Los Angeles Times noted in 1997 that Newsom’s “telegenic face and slicked back hair are fixtures of the society pages.”  

Newsom found success as a San Francisco restaurateur, but this was directly because of Gordon Getty’s investments as well as Newsom’s own connections to the elite. In 2003, it emerged that 10 out of 11 of Newsom’s business ventures had received funding from Getty. But the financial benefit did not stop there. Newsom received a cool $169,000 from a Getty trust for “investment advice” between 1997 and 2000. Additionally, Getty gave Newsom an advantaged home loan that was determined to be worth the equivalent of a $40,000-a-year gift. “I have made loans to Gavin, as I would to my own sons,” said Getty in defending the gift, which allegedly violated California’s Political Reform Act. 

In addition to having his career as a businessman funded into existence by Gordon Getty, Newsom was handed his political career through Getty’s intervention. Getty, along with William Newsom, Newsom’s biological father, connected Gavin with their close associate, Willie Brown, who was seeking to be elected San Francisco’s mayor and had been speaker of the California Assembly. In 1995, Newsom hosted a fundraiser for Brown and used his status in high society to win donations for the longtime politician. Newsom also vouched for Brown while barhopping at the city’s elite hangout spots, Brown later recounted.  

Upon his election, Mayor Brown selected Newsom for a role on the city’s Parking and Traffic Commission. In 1997, Brown elevated Newsom to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Given that Newsom was “born and bred by Gordon Getty and Willie Brown and John Burton and the political machine that has run California for decades,” the move likely pleased Getty and the city’s moneyed elites, who would justifiably see Newsom as representing them on the board. Jeff Sheehy, the president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club told the Los Angeles Times, “[H]e’s smart and charming and he’s working hard, but it’s obvious why he is where he is.” 

Given that Newsom had joined the Board of Supervisors because of nepotism, he was not prepared for political life. At an event soon after his appointment to the board, Newsom apologized to citizens for not having more thought-out policy positions. “I’ve been learning about politics,” he told them.  

Newsom continued his ascent in politics as the prince of the San Francisco elite. In the race that would determine his replacement, Willie Brown threw all of his support behind Newsom. Newsom’s opponent in the election, Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez, constantly attacked Newsom for being the puppet of Willie Brown and the city’s old-money class. During the campaign, the leftist LGBTQ organization Gay Shame even burned a giant effigy of Newsom that featured him wearing a grandiose suit with cash protruding from his breast pocket. 

Though Newsom wants to use his new memoir to tell a story of finding success from a downtrodden beginning, his introduction to business and politics was entirely fueled by his role as Getty’s son. In fact, Getty has even admitted that Newsom is his favorite son. When Billy Getty and Newsom had a public falling-out in 2000, Getty apparently went with Newsom over his own biological son, saying, “I believe 100 percent in Gavin, and when he is accused of wrongdoing, I’m on his side.”  

For a profile of Newsom published in Vogue earlier this month, Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, said of her husband, “He was raised by a single mom who’d hold down two or three jobs and he had to be the man of the house.” That may very well be true, and all of that was no doubt difficult. There are few things more painful in life than living through the breakdown of your family.  

But what is important here is assessing whether Newsom got to where he is today because of his own efforts or because of his role as the San Francisco elite’s anointed one.  

Newsom should start being honest about his advantages in life, or the American people will see him as a liar for spinning a tale of woe from a life of privilege.