California is burning, budgets are bleeding red ink, and crime and fraud keep climbing—but don’t worry. Governor Gavin Newsom found time to sit for a glamorous Vogue spread where the biggest challenge appeared to be selecting the right lighting.
The glossy profile reads less like journalism and more like a celebrity valentine. Vogue opens by swooning over Newsom’s looks, declaring, “Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address.” Californians waiting for leadership on wildfires, homelessness, or Hollywood’s collapse might reasonably wonder: is this really how the governor wants to spend his time?
To complete the fantasy, Vogue enlisted Annie Leibovitz to photograph Newsom, framing him not as the executive of a troubled state, but as a Hollywood leading man. Readers are treated to domestic trivia courtesy of First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. “I’m a stuff-everywhere person; he has defined piles,” she said. “When he cooks, he cleans as he cooks. Dishes in the dishwasher—though I don’t always agree with how he puts them in.” Riveting stuff—if you’re redecorating, not governing.
The interview briefly promotes Newsom’s upcoming memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery,” revisiting familiar ground like his dyslexia and long-documented ties to the Getty family. What it doesn’t revisit are the problems Californians actually live with every day.
To her credit, the Vogue writer admits she didn’t ask about them. “There were topics I didn’t get to discuss with him—the LA wildfires, contraction and corporate consolidation in Hollywood, homelessness, the coming AI apocalypse, to name a few,” she concedes, before praising Newsom’s love of “spitballing.” Californians might prefer answers over spitballs.
Instead, readers get a rundown of Newsom’s latest political theater—sparring with President Trump over the National Guard, pushing Proposition 50, and rolling out a social-media strategy that suspiciously resembles Trump’s own bare-knuckle approach. Even Newsom’s decision to sit down with conservative activist Charlie Kirk is framed as intellectual curiosity rather than political calculation.
“I don’t share his politics. I don’t like the way he talked down to people. I don’t like what he said about the gay community and minorities,” Newsom told Vogue. “The purpose was to discuss why the hell does he have so much influence? Wake up. There’s 40 percent or whatever it is in this country that feels deeply differently than we do, and we need to understand this movement and not be so quick to dismiss it. Divorce is not an option. So what are we going to do about this?”
What Newsom and Vogue didn’t seem interested in discussing is why Californians are fleeing the state, why fraud is rampant, or why victims of the Palisades fires are still waiting for answers more than a year later.
“Let’s get this out of the way. He is embarrassingly handsome.” -Vogue Magazine Newsom fluffer
Yeah, so was Ted Bundy. https://t.co/Xi44nxLkTc
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 3, 2026
When Senator Rick Scott pointed out the obvious—“Fraud is rampant in California, the state is running huge deficits, and victims of the Palisades fires are still waiting for answers over a year later. I’m sure Californians are feeling much better knowing that their Governor is spending his time convincing @Vogue to tell him he’s pretty.”—Woods delivered a one-line knockout that instantly stole the spotlight.
Responding to the notion of Newsom being “embarrassingly handsome,” Woods deadpanned: “Yeah, so was Ted Bundy.”
That was it. No paragraph. No lecture. Just razor-sharp wit cutting through layers of elite media fluff. In one sentence, Woods said what millions of frustrated Californians were thinking: good looks don’t equal good leadership.
Judging by the reaction online, his punchline landed far harder than Newsom’s photo spread ever will.
