New York City Mayor Eric Adams called a local beat reporter a “dark, sick person” over a story about a book written by a woman who alleged she had a romantic relationship with him.
Former City Hall official Jasmine Ray’s new tell-all memoir, Political Humanity, describes an alleged secret relationship with Adams from 2014 to 2016 while he was serving as Brooklyn’s borough president, according to The New York Times. Adams went on to appoint Ray as the city’s first director of the Mayor’s Office of Sports, Wellness and Recreation in 2022. She resigned from the role last month.
Adams endorsed the book on Thursday, writing on X that Ray “always led with integrity” and that he “enjoyed reading” her book. But at a press conference the same day, Adams ripped into a journalist from the New York Daily News after the outlet reported that Ray described sleeping with Adams for the first time in his Brooklyn Borough Hall office.
The mayor said it was “never in the book” as he appeared to slam a reporter involved in the story.
“In the Daily News today, it was stated that there was a sexual action that happened in Borough Hall she reported in that book, and it wasn’t,” Adams said. “You’re a dark, sick person…your name was on the byline.”
“Some of you have been covering me for three-and-a-half years, some of you are so sick and dark, and you’re the leader of that,” Adams added. “You’re one of the most dark writers I’ve ever seen in this city.”
Adams went on to accuse the reporter of “oversexualizing a Black man.”
“The sickness of how you think of oversexualizing a Black man,” he continued. “That in the book, you stated that there was a sexual action in Borough Hall, that was never in the book, but that’s typical of the sickness and the darkness of your sick mind. You’re one of the sickest reporters I know.”
Ray wrote that she and Adams “crossed that line” in Borough Hall, but she didn’t go into clear detail, according to an excerpt of her book shared on social media.
“He didn’t ask. He didn’t explain. He just looked at me…And in that look, I knew. He had made up his mind,” the excerpt reads. “He closed the distance like a man stepping into something he couldn’t walk back from. And then he said, ‘F*** it.’ After we crossed that line, the love and the fun only intensified.”
New York Daily News Executive Editor Andrew Julien told City and State New York that the outlet is “not the story here.”
The Independent has contacted the New York Daily News, Adams’s office and Ray for comment.
The New York Times described Ray’s book as an “ardent love letter” to the outgoing mayor, who ended his reelection bid last month. This comes as several polls show New York State Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani leading in the mayoral race, while his opponent, Andrew Cuomo, remains in second place.
New Yorkers will elect their next mayor on November 4.
