Andrew Gillum hoped to restore his respect and dignity in an exclusive interview with Tamron Hall.
The full interview will air during the Season 2 premiere of ‘Tamron Hall’ on Monday, Sept. 14.
The 41-year-old father of three told Tamron he cried every day since paramedics found him lying on the floor in his own vomit in a South Beach hotel room with a naked male escort in March.
Travis Dyson, an ER nurse who advertised his male escort services online, voluntarily surrendered his registered nursing license after the news broke.
Photos depicted bottles of prescription and illegal drugs with pills strewn on the floor and on a nightstand.
The former Democratic candidate for governor was so inebriated he could not communicate with paramedics. Gillum was not arrested despite the presence of illegal drugs in the room.
Gillum addressed the scandal that derailed his promising political career in his talk with Tamron. He said he hoped to redeem himself and he went into alcohol rehab after years of fighting depression.
“I’m still here by the grace of God. So much of my recovery has been about trying to get over shame. Shame is not that I did that, but I am bad.”
When asked why he was in a $220-a-night hotel room with a naked male escort, Gillum responded, “I would say the reason why I went to that room was probably no different than how anybody might communicate with someone that they are in a friendship relationship whatever with. I understand very well what people assume about that.”
He also addressed the shocking photo that showed him nude on the bathroom floor in his own vomit.
“When that photo came out, I didn’t recognize the person on the floor,” he said.
“That was not anything more than a person being at their most vulnerable state, unconscious, having given no consent, and someone decided to use a moment where I was literally lying in my own vomit.”
Police also found a vial of injectable medication that is typically prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction.
Gillum, a former rising superstar in the Democratic Party, narrowly lost the 2018 gubernatorial race in Florida that would have made him the first Black governor of the nation’s largest swing state.
Gillum was joined in the interview by his long-suffering wife R. Jai Howard, who discussed the impact of her husband’s scandal on their marriage and their family and what the future holds.
