Newt Gingrich asked for an “open marriage” amid an affair with former House aide and current wife Callista Gingrich, according to an interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich, that is to be aired on ABC News tonight. Gingrich asked if she would share him with Callista, she said in the interview. “And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do,’” Marianne Gingrich said. “He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”
In the interview with ABC’s Brian Ross to air tonight on “Nightline,” Marianne Gingrich said her former husband lacks the moral character to be president and his campaign positions on family values and marriage don’t line up with his personal behavior, according to excerpts of the interview released by ABC.
Gingrich has tried to put his personal past behind him by saying he’d made mistakes. His two prior marriages have been an issue through the campaign. Last month he revived the issue with claims about the details of his first divorce that were disputed by a former aide and court documents.
The Republican presidential candidate insists that it was his first wife, Jackie Battley Gingrich, who sought a divorce in 1980. After court records showed he filed the action, the Gingrich campaign said he’d done so at her request.
Gingrich, 68, has largely sidestepped specific questions about his second marriage, saying he has “no relationship” with Marianne Gingrich.
An online column in May by daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman, referenced on his campaign website, asserted her mother had asked for the divorce. The elder Jackie, 75, couldn’t be reached for comment.
