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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Battered by cancer and the breakup of his marriage, the tough New York mayor shows his vulnerable side -- but his wife strikes back.
May 10, 2000 | Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that he plans to seek a formal separation from his wife of 16 years, Donna Hanover. It was the latest twist in a bizarre two-week period that has included Giuliani's disclosure that he has prostate cancer and a tabloid feeding frenzy over revelations that he appears to have a girlfriend. The drama isn't over: Hours after Giuliani's announcement, his estranged wife blasted him over another alleged affair.
"I don't think I'm saying anything that you haven't, um, that you haven't all written," Giuliani told a group of captivated reporters. "Over the course of some period of time, in many ways, we've grown to live independent and separate lives," he said of his marriage to Hanover. "And we should probably strive toward formalizing it."
While few can recall the last time a candidate for a major office disclosed a serious illness in the middle of a campaign, fewer still could also recall a candidate announcing the end of his marriage in the middle of a campaign. The impact of this pronouncement on his bid for the U.S. Senate is unclear.
The mayor's latest pronouncement about his personal life came on the rooftop of the Bryant Park Grill on a blustery spring afternoon just after he delivered remarks at a Jewish heritage event in the park below. Giuliani's pronouncement came after Elisabeth Bumiller, the New York Times' City Hall bureau chief, asked him whether he had any response to published comments by Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. In Wednesday's New York Post, Bruno said Giuliani's apparent extramarital affair with divorcee Judith Nathan, an upper East Side sales manager, could affect his Senate run.
"I do," said Giuliani, gripping the sides of his mayoral lectern, his eyes downcast. He assumed an unusually vulnerable mien and launched into a long series of reflections about the state of his marriage, appearing unsure at times of what he would say. "I, um, this is very, very painful. Um, for um, quite some time I, it's probably been apparent that Donna and I, uh, lead, um, ind -- in many ways, independent and separate lives. It's been a very painful road and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to, um, to formalize that in, in an agreement that protects our children, that gives them all the security and all the protection they deserve, and protects Donna. And that's something we have to work -- that's something we have to work out, we have to strive toward."
His eyes remaining downcast, he continued. "I'm a public person. I'm elected to public office. I do my job, I think honestly and effectively and as well as I can and I, y'know, I realize that my private life is open to everyone. I just watch what's going on and I just wish that you'd maybe respect it a little bit more. But in any event, we'll do the best that we can to make the decisions that we have to make that are consistent with our own lives and our children."
Giuliani praised Hanover throughout the press conference, calling her a "wonderful person." But his estranged wife was considerably less charitable. In a prepared statement read at the Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence, on Wednesday, she made reference to Giuliani's long-rumored affair with his former communications director, Cristyne Lategano.
"Today's turn of events brings me great sadness," said Hanover, her eyes filling with tears. "I had hoped that we could keep this marriage together. For several years, it was difficult to participate in Rudy's public life because of his relationship with one staff member," she said, apparently talking about Lategano. "Beginning last May, I made a major effort to get us back together, and Rudy and I reestablished some of our personal intimacies through the fall.
"At that point, he chose another path," she said.
Back at the press conference, Rafael Martinez Alequin, the gadfly-ish editor of an infrequently published free political newspaper, asked whether Hanover would be moving out of Gracie Mansion.
"Nobody, nobody, nobody is moving anywhere," Giuliani responded, as music from a tambourine-heavy band in the park down below rang out loudly. "Everybody is secure and safe. What I said is that we should try to work out a separation agreement ... A separation agreement is not a divorce."
Giuliani said Bruno's statements did not motivate him to finally announce what had seemed inevitable to political observers for years. "I'm motivated by all of the tremendous invasion of privacy that's taken place in everyone's life," he said. "In my family's, Judith Nathan's family ... this is something that has developed over some period of time and it's something between Donna and me. Uh, not anyone else and really not even the whole world, just between Donna and me."
Last week, the New York Post published photos of Giuliani leaving a restaurant with Nathan, whom the mayor subsequently described as a "good friend." That revelation has in turn led to an almost daily spate of stories, columns and editorials about Nathan and the mayor.
Only when asked if he had to explain those Post photographs to his children -- who are 10 and 14 years old -- did Giuliani come close to resembling the mayor who normally has such combative relations with the press. "I wouldn't tell you that, in a million years," he said, his eyes narrowing. "I wouldn't tell you what I say to my children, you have no right to know what I say to my children, any more than I have any right to know what you say to your children."
