A former city employee who had a consensual affair with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco said she is “doubtful” their relationship is an example that fits the #MeToo movement.

In 2007, Newsom publicly apologized for having an affair in 2005 with Ruby Rippey Gibney, who was his commission appointments secretary. At the time, she was married to Alex Tourk, Newsom’s campaign manager, and known as Ruby Rippey-Tourk. Newsom was separated from his first wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, when the affair occurred.

This week, Newsom, at the top of the polls in the race to be California’s next governor, responded to a question at a University of San Francisco appearance about what he would say to voters hesitant to vote for him because of that conduct, especially in the #MeToo era of heightened awareness of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior.

“I would say the same thing that I said (then) to the voters in San Francisco. That I acknowledged it. I apologized for it. I learned an enormous amount from it,” Newsom said Monday during an onstage interview at the university. “And I am every day trying to be a champion and a model — not just for women and girls — but to deal with the issue that we need to focus on, which is the crisis with men and boys in this state and in this country.”

He described a culture of “toxic masculinity” where men are responsible for much of the violence in the nation.

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Responding Wednesday on her Facebook page to a story about Newsom’s remarks, Rippey Gibney — who has since remarried — wrote: “To be clear: I fully support the #metoo movement. In this particular instance, however, I am doubtful that it applies.

“Yes, I was a subordinate but I was also a free-thinking, 33-year-old, adult married woman & mother. (A)lso happened to have an unfortunate inclination toward drinking-to-excess and self-destruction.

“I can’t blame anyone for my part in this ugly episode,” she wrote. “What I did, along with the public fallout, destroyed my marriage.”

She said she didn’t care about the publicity at the time, “only about the wreckage I had created for my husband.”

The affair with Newsom, while consensual, sparked political controversy at the time.

A subsequent city attorney’s report into whether it was proper for Rippey Gibney to receive $10,154 in “catastrophic illness pay” from the city after she left her job after the affair uncovered nothing illegal, but raised questions about whether she should have been eligible for the payments. According to the report, the pay was based on her acceptance into the city’s Catastrophic Illness Program.

The report said it is supposed to be offered to employees with “a life-threatening illness or injury, as determined by the Department of Public Health” to “reduce hardship and suffering of catastrophically ill city employees.” The report questioned whether Rippey Gibney, who took a leave from City Hall in May 2006 to enter a substance abuse program, should have been eligible for that program.

Rippey Gibney wrote this week that the incident “also humbled me to the point of sustained sobriety (11+ years now); it gave my beautiful son a sober mother; (it freed my ex to find happiness and create a new family with someone else); and it gave me a chance to start over and try this life-thing again. (Thank you Ryan Gibney for giving me a chance at a new life and family — I love you very much.)

“As Mike Tyson once said, ‘If you’re not humble, life will visit humbleness upon you,’” Rippey Gibney wrote.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli