The New York Times has uncovered an email written by Pete Hegseth’s mother in 2018 calling him an abuser of women and telling him he needs help. Pete Hegseth’s Mother Accused Her Son of Mistreating Women for Years:
Mrs. Hegseth emailed her son on April 30, 2018, during a turbulent period in his life. He was in the middle of a contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children. Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker, part of a pattern of adultery that dated back to his first marriage.
Before I go any further, I do have to add that, according to the Times, his mother, Penelope Hegseth, apologized to her son immediately after sending him the email:
Mrs. Hegseth, in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday, said that she had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written. She said she had fired off the original email “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his wife were going through a very difficult divorce.
In the interview, she defended her son and disavowed the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she said. She added: “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She said that publishing the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”
The Times published the email as a separate article: Text of the Email That Pete Hegseth’s Mother Sent Him:
I have tried to keep quiet about your character and behavior, but after listening to the way you made Samantha feel today, I cannot stay silent. And as a woman and your mother I feel I must speak out..
You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.
I am not a saint, far from it.. so don’t throw that in my face,. but your abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out.
(There’s more to the email; go read it.)
The Times explains how it got the email, which apparently no one is denying is genuine:
Mrs. Hegseth forwarded a copy of her email to Samantha the same night she sent it to her son, according to documents reviewed by The Times. The Times obtained a copy of the email from another person with ties to the Hegseth family. The email does not describe in detail the circumstances that prompted Mrs. Hegseth to write it.
