Despite sex scandals, wives often stand by their men
On Monday, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer appeared with his wife Silda (but not their three daughters) at a press conference in which he apologized to his family and to the public, although he never said what for.
It turns out it was for getting caught with a hooker named Kristen. And Silda Spitzer became the latest in a very, very long line of wives who have stood next to their husbands at press conferences about sexual indiscretions. Here are a few of many in this Hall of Shame.
"I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary," Wendy Vitter once said. "If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me." She was talking about her husband, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). When he admitted sex with a prostitute in 2007, however, she stood by his side at the press conference.
Earlier this year, Carlita Kilpatrick appeared with her husband, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, when he apologized about an affair with an aide. "Yes, I am angry, I am hurt and I am disappointed," she said. "But there is no question that I love my husband."
In 2007, Suzanne Craig appeared at a press conference, wearing large sunglasses, alongside her husband, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) after he had pleaded guilty to soliciting an undercover policeman in an airport bathroom. "I am not gay," Craig said.
In 1999, Atlanta Falcon Eugene Robinson was arrested the night before he was to play in the Super Bowl for soliciting sex from an undercover cop on a Miami street. "I want to apologize to everybody ... but especially my wife," Gia, he said at a press conference. She had been staying at the hotel when he was arrested.
In the summer of 2001, the media were obsessed with the death of Chandra Levy and her connection to Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif). Condit was cleared of her murder, but had to admit he had had a relationship with the intern, including to his wife of 34 years, Carolyn Condit.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Pres. Bill Clinton famously said. He did, of course, in perhaps the most public and drawn-out case of a wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, standing by her husband through a very public airing of his extra-marital sex life.
L.A. Lakers star Kobe Bryant was charged with the rape of a hotel employee. He denied the rape, but said they had had consensual sex. His wife Vanessa supported him in public and he later bought her a diamond ring reportedly worth $4 million, according to People magazine. The rape charge was eventually dropped.
In 1987, Jim Bakker stepped down from his hugely popular "PTL Club" ministry with wife Tammy Faye Bakker because of a sexual encounter with a secretary, Jessica Hahn, to whom he had paid hush money. Tammy Faye frequently appeared on TV supporting her husband in teary soliloquies. She divorced him while he was in prison, then said she forgave him.
Dina Matos McGreevey stood with her husband, then-Gov. James McGreevey of New Jersey, when he came out of the closet as a "gay American" and said he would resign. He was being blackmailed by a former lover. They divorced, and she wrote a tell-all book.
In 1987, Presidential candidate and Senator Gary Hart was accused of having an affair with Donna Rice, and the tabloids published a photo of Rice sitting on his lap. Wife Lee supported him: "When Gary says nothing happened, nothing happened."