5 Disgraced New York Icons and How They Recovered (Or Not)
Rudy Giuliani; Married His Cousin and Other Marital Issues
Like everyone else I knew, I had a bright yellow “Giuliani Is a Jerk” sticker slapped on my boom box in the late ’90s. Man, I had a lot of good stickers on that boom box. RIP boom box. But so, when people talk about Giuliani now—especially people who are not from New York—they associate him with, obviously, the events around September 11, 2001. But not everyone remembers that Rudy went through his own political sex scandals, way back in the 20th century. The one that he is most remembered for the disclosure in 200 of his affair with Judi Nathan, who later became his wife. This scandal was perhaps not as big of a deal as it could have been, because Rudy was on his way out of office anyway, and also because he was pretty open about it. But that was not Rudy’s original scandal. No. His original scandal was that his first marriage in 1968, to Regina Peruggi, was eventually annulled because—surprise!—they were second cousins. Rudy! This isn’t West Virginia! How do you get past something like that?
I Think We All Know He Recovered Right?
So, yeah. It turns out that New Yorkers don’t care about political sex scandals as long as the candidates aren’t apologetic about it. Giuliani was not apologetic at ALL about marrying his cousin and then getting the marriage annulled in order to marry the wife that he would one day ditch in a public and humiliating manner. Anthony Weiner really could have learned a lesson from Rudy. Namely, just own what you did and stop dragging your wife around to apologize with you. That just makes everyone uncomfortable.
