Gavin Newsom says Kimberly Guilfoyle 'fell prey' to the culture at Fox News and was a 'different person' when they were married

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle "fell prey" to Fox News.
• Guilfoyle was a "different person" when they were together, Newsom said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle was a "different person" when they were married and that she "fell prey" to the culture at Fox News.

In an interview on CNN's "The Axe Files" podcast, released on Tuesday, Newsom said that when he was with Guilfoyle, she was an ambitious lawyer who was "whip-smart" and had "a prosecutorial mindset."

"She was a different person," Newsom, who is a Democrat, told CNN. "She was working for a progressive district attorney ... We were close to Kamala [Harris], she knew her well, and she was spending a lot of time in Democratic circles."

Newsom and Guilfoyle married in 2001 and were together when he was sworn in as mayor of San Francisco in 2004.

However, Guilfoyle filed for divorce in 2005, citing the strain of a bi-coastal marriage after moving to New York City that same year to work in broadcast television, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Guilfoyle started appearing on Fox News as a legal analyst in 2004. She became a full-time host on the network in 2006 after joining the weekend show "The Lineup."

Guilfoyle is now engaged to Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son of former President Donald Trump. After leaving Fox News in June 2018, she worked as a campaign advisor to Trump.

"She had her ambition, I just got elected mayor, and days after I was elected mayor, she moved to New York for a Court TV gig, and then eventually Fox," he said, adding that he thought the job as a host on Fox News appealed to his ex-wife "because of her ambition."

"She fell prey, I think, to the culture at Fox in a deep way," he said. "She would disagree with that assessment, she would perhaps suggest that she found the light."

She has since refashioned herself as a conservative influencer for female Trump supporters and has been vocal about her right-wing politics.

Newsom admitted to CNN that seeing Guilfoyle attending Republican conventions was not easy for him at first, saying: "Of course these things are hard, I'm human. But hey, we didn't have kids thankfully ... we were different people back then."

Asked if he'd been invited to Guilfoyle's wedding to Trump Jr., Newsom responded: "Well, I'm very busy."

Newsom is married to documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom and they have four children. Guilfoyle did not immediately respond to a request by Insider to comment.