Gavin Newsom’s talks about grandfather holding gun to his mom’s head

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom shared disturbing details about his grandfather holding a gun to his mother’s head — using the awful anecdote to say it helped make him the man he is today.

Speaking to an audience in New Hampshire while promoting his new memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” Newsom recounted how he learned about his mom’s tragic experience as a child.

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaking at a book event in New Hampshire on March 5. REUTERS

“[M]y mom, when she was a kid, her dad put a gun to her head in a raging fireplace threatening to kill her,” he said, describing his grandfather as a military veteran who “spent almost three and a half years as a prisoner of war.”

“And he came back broken. Raging alcoholic,” Newsom continued. “Ultimately, [he] committed suicide himself. Threatened my mom as a young child. All this stuff, I didn’t know any of this.

“And it explains so many things in so many ways of who I am today. And how this echoes generation. How everything has shape-shifted. And so again it’s been a powerful and cathartic process.”

The comments echoed ones Newsom made to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday while discussing his book and situations that shaped his family.

“She [his mom] had all these struggles. I never, she never revealed them,” he said. “I lacked the curiosity to really push her on it. I didn’t want to engage.”

“But when she was a kid, her father, my grandfather, was drunk, which was a daily occurrence,” he added. “And had a gun, and put the two girls, my mom and her twin, up against the mantle of the fireplace and said he was going to kill them.

“Put a gun right to their head, until my grandmother, Jean, came in, and calmly put him down. And then he passed out. She never told me that. I learned about that.”

Gavin Newsom with his mom, Tessa Menzies. X / @GavinNewsom
Gavin, Tessa, Hilary, and Bill Newsom standing together. University of San Francisco

He previously opened up about the experience to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2016.

The California Post contacted Newsom’s office for comment.

He has called his memoir, released on February 24, a “love letter” to his family.

His book and tour arrive ahead of the the 58-year-old’s much-speculated run for president in 2028.


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