Gay Ex-Gov's Wife Fires Back
The wife of former New Jersey governor James E. McGreevey describes him in her upcoming memoir as self-absorbed and controlling, and says that, among other demands, he insisted she move out of the governor's mansion before his official resignation so she wouldn't "look like white trash."
The descriptions appear in Dina Matos McGreevey's book "Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage," scheduled to hit bookstores May 1. A copy of the book was obtained by the New York Daily News.
Matos McGreevey wrote that her husband offered only an indifferent apology days after he appeared on national television in Aug. 2004 and announced "I am a gay American" and said he would resign.
Before that appearance, she wrote, McGreevey told her, "You have to pull yourself together. You have to be Jackie Kennedy today," and repeatedly told her what to say and how to act in the aftermath of his admission.
Matos McGreevey also wrote that she thought their marriage was solid — "The sex was good," she writes — and had worries only about her husband's secretive calls and visits to his first wife and daughter — until he summoned her to the governor's mansion three days before he told the world he was gay.
Matos McGreevey wrote that her husband said he was being blackmailed by aide Golan Cipel and that he had had a relationship with Cipel that was "not sexual ... but sexual."
When she had to look for another place to live, Matos McGreevey wrote, her husband said he had no savings and refused to give her a down payment unless she agreed to a quick divorce settlement.
Matos McGreevey also said her husband told her if she stayed at the governor's mansion until the last minute it would make her "look like white trash."
According to the Daily News, Matos McGreevey also complains that McGreevey mentioned in his speech his love for his first wife, but not for her, and didn't apologize to her for days — and even then, it was perfunctory.
"Silent Partner" is Matos McGreevey's response to McGreevey's autobiography, "The Confession," which was published last September. In it, McGreevey described steamy sexual encounters with Cipel — who continues to deny having an affair with the then-governor — and wrote that he married Matos McGreevey for political gain.
The couple are separated and embroiled in a nasty custody battle over their daughter, Jacqueline, born in December 2001, just after his election as governor.
Matos McGreevey was born in Portugal in 1966 and grew up in the Portuguese section of Newark, N.J. They were married in October 2000. It was his second marriage, her first.