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“He thinks that he, oh, you know, ‘I’ll get off the pills, but I’m not giving up the blow,” said Renata Ford. Unbeknownst to her, the man has secretly recorded the conversation, Ms. Doolittle writes. He sounded stunned. “There’s a lot of people after him … that’s why you’ve got to be very careful.”

“I know that,” Mrs. Ford is said to have responded. “I told him, ‘F—, you could ruin your whole f—ing life.’”

She said she has tried to talk to people before but she can’t trust them. “I got two kids, I’ve gotta, you know, I’ve gotta get this s–it together. And like you said, we’re in the public … you know, it’s just time. It’s f—ing time.”

This confidant gives advice to Renata Ford about “methadone, withdrawal symptoms and clinics that will be discreet,” the book states.

Mayor Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, said he spoke to Renata Ford about the alleged conversation detailed in Crazy Townand said that she denies it happened.

“I spoke to Renata and basically she said, ‘I have very few friends, I don’t go to Tim Hortons and hang out with a guy in a parking lot, so definitely I never said that, I was never in that parking lot,’” said Mr. Morris.

He said he did not probe whether she ever had any concerns about her husband’s drug use.

“I know them both. I’ve had many conversations with her and she does pooh pooh this as a means of trying to embarrass him and minimize him as a mayor,” said Mr. Morris. “He acknowledges now that he does have some difficulties in terms of substance abuse and that’s alcohol,” he added, but the lawyer maintains the mayor has “turned over a new leaf.”