Kimberly Guilfoyle

Kimberly Guilfoyle’s résumé is eclectic, to say the least. CSelected in 2025 as U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Guilfoyle is perhaps better known for things she was formerly, including:

• Prosecuting attorney working in the Los Angeles and San Francisco district attorney’s offices
• Fox News TV host
• Wife of then San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and first lady of San Francisco
• Fiancée of Donald Trump, Jr.

In 2026, she added former ambassador to Greece to that list when she was asked by Trump to resign amid a growing scandal.

Early years

Guilfoyle grew up in San Francisco, the daughter of Mercedes Marie Gerena and Anthony Guilfoyle. Her mother was born in Puerto Rico, and her father, who had immigrated from Ireland and served in the U.S. Army, became a fixture in San Francisco politics. Known as “The Godfather,” he played a key role as adviser to his son-in-law, politician Gavin Newsom. As a child Guilfoyle loved playing soccer, and when she was denied a spot on her school’s second-grade team because it was an all-boys squad, her mother persuaded the coach to give Kimberly a tryout; she made the team. Looking back on it years later, she told SFGATE in 2001, “I think that was exactly the principles my parents tried to teach to me: Everyone should have an equal chance to show their ability. What you make of that chance is up to you.” Guilfoyle’s mother died of leukemia when she was 11.

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Guilfoyle attended the University of California, Davis, and earned a law degree from the University of San Francisco. To help pay for law school, she worked as a model. “I modeled everything from clothes, swimwear and lingerie, including Victoria’s Secret,” she said in a 2014 People interview.

Prosecutor, San Francisco first lady

Guilfoyle got a job in the San Francisco district attorney’s office, then worked as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles before returning to the San Francisco office in 2000 as an assistant district attorney. But her return came with some drama. According to Guilfoyle, before she landed the job, Kamala Harris, then an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, phoned her. “She called me and said basically that she was on the hiring committee and in charge of the budget for the D.A.’s office, and that I should have gone through her if I wanted to return to the D.A.’s office—and that there was no money to hire me,” Guilfoyle told SFGATE in 2003, adding, “Talented women should support other talented women.” Harris denied discouraging Guilfoyle, telling the news site that she had called to offer help.

In any event Guilfoyle got a job with the office a couple of months later. In 2024, when Harris, then the sitting vice president, ran for president, Guilfoyle, a Trump surrogate, used the story to try to discredit the Democratic candidate. “I know her for 25 years, and let me tell you something. Do whatever it takes to keep her out of the White House,” Guilfoyle said at a Republican Party dinner in Florida.

Guilfoyle’s profile rose quickly in the district attorney’s office when she helped prosecute and win the conviction of a couple whose 130-pound dog had fatally mauled a 33-year-old woman outside her apartment; Guilfoyle’s work included doing TV spots for the district attorney’s office.

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In 2001 she married Newsom, then on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “Forget ‘Kennedyesque.’ I think we need a new word—‘Newsomly,’ ” quipped SFGATE. Guilfoyle became first lady of San Francisco after Newsom, a Democrat, won the mayoral race in 2003. But the couple separated in 2005; Newsom later admitted to having an extramarital affair. Guilfoyle married businessman and furniture heir Eric Villency in 2006. The couple had a son, Ronan, in 2006; they divorced in 2009.

TV personality

In 2004 Guilfoyle moved to New York to pursue a television career, hosting the Court TV series Both Sides. She also provided legal commentary on several national shows, including Good Morning America. In 2006 Guilfoyle became host of the Fox News show The Lineup. After the show was canceled, she provided legal analysis on several shows before becoming co-host of The Five and Outnumbered. But Guilfoyle left the network in 2018, with several years remaining on her contract, after her assistant accused her of repeated sexual harassment; Fox reportedly reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the assistant. Guilfoyle denied the claims.

Team Trump

Guilfoyle began dating Donald Trump, Jr., in 2018, while he was separated from his wife, Vanessa Trump (the couple were divorced by the end of the year). Guilfoyle and Trump, Jr., became engaged in 2020. During this time she was a forceful advocate for the elder Trump, delivering impassioned speeches on his behalf at the Republican National Conventions in 2020 and 2024. After Guilfoyle’s 2020 convention speech, Trump was said to have compared her to Eva Perón, the influential and beloved wife of Argentine Pres. Juan Perón during the late 1940s and early ’50s. Trump also reportedly considered her for the role of White House press secretary in his first term.

Guilfoyle and Trump, Jr., never married, and in late 2024 he was photographed holding hands with a woman named Bettina Anderson in Palm Beach, Florida; Trump, Jr., and Anderson announced their engagement in December 2025.

As he prepared for his second term, president-elect Trump posted on Truth Social that he was nominating Guilfoyle to be his U.S. ambassador to Greece. “Her extensive experience and leadership in law, media, and politics along with her sharp intellect make her supremely qualified to represent the United States,” Trump wrote. Her nomination was approved by the U.S. Senate in September 2025.

In October 2026 she became embroiled in a scandal after The Wall Street Journal published alleged text messages in which she requested that a donor wire $100,000 to her American Express account. In exchange for the money, Guilfoyle reportedly offered the donor political access. Days later Trump asked for Guilfoyle’s resignation; she denied wrongdoing.