New York City Mayor Eric Adams can’t catch a break.
On Sunday, he finally pulled the plug on his reelection campaign after months of speculation that he was looking for a way out. At one point, there was even talk that President Donald Trump’s team might offer him a job—potentially ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
But just as Adams tries to retreat from the spotlight, a former aide is yanking him right back into it with a self-published memoir about what she says was their romantic relationship.
Jasmine Ray, a former recording artist who ran the Mayor’s Office of Sports, Wellness, and Recreation before resigning on Sept. 26, announced on Sept. 27 that her book, “Political Humanity,” will be released this week. Her website bills it as a “memoir of love, legacy & New York City politics.”
The cover leaves little to the imagination: a woman’s hands cradle the bald head of a man who resembles Adams, with the city skyline stretched across his back.
A screenshot of the cover of Jasmine Ray’s book about New York City Mayor Eric Adams
“From the shadows of City Hall to the silence of closed-door meetings, Jasmine Ray reveals her untold role in the life of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams,” the book description reads. “Their hidden relationship—marked by intimacy, sacrifice, and betrayal—mirrors the larger struggles of politics itself.”
New York City Hall hasn’t ignored it. Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for Adams, confirmed to the Daily News that Adams and Ray dated about a decade ago, but she insisted that their relationship was professional while they worked together.
Adams, who isn’t married, has long been with Tracey Collins, a former city Department of Education administrator. The two attended the Met Gala together in 2022 and share a condo in Fort Lee, New Jersey—something that’s fueled years of speculation about where the mayor actually resides.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams
And if the book itself weren’t enough, Ray unveiled it on Instagram with a surreal AI-generated trailer that shows deepfake Adams and Ray meeting and dancing, all set to a dramatic theme song with lines like, “Love and power and truth comes through!”
The clip also references Adams’ legal woes, showing a fake news chyron about his indictment as a narrator says, “She stayed silent while the world judged him. They saw the politician, but she knew the man.”
Politico dug into Ray’s social media accounts and found that her ties to Adams date back to at least 2014, with photos of the two having dinner and posing in front of the Williamsburg Bridge when he was still Brooklyn borough president.
Her memoir promises to cover more than just romance. Adams was indicted on federal corruption charges before Trump’s Justice Department swooped in to have them dropped. In a chapter called “Trials and The Call,” Ray writes that she was “thrust into a federal investigation” and forced into “impossible choices between silence and truth.”
Ray’s tenure in city government wasn’t exactly spotless either. Her gig didn’t exist before Adams created it, and Politico reported that she was pulling down a $150,000 salary in the role.
Last year, NBC New York reported that Ray had been granted a conflict-of-interest waiver in 2022 to continue consulting for Cornerstone Day Care, where she previously served as executive director. That raised eyebrows, since just a year earlier, Cornerstone had scored a $4.7 million contract for pre-K services with the city.
Her social media activity also drew some heat. She once voiced support for Trump’s ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports, questioned vaccines, and even offered to hire teachers who were fired for refusing to be vaccinated. Some of those posts have since been deleted.
All of this comes as Adams bows out of City Hall, leaving behind a legacy of federal scrutiny, plummeting poll numbers, and now a scandalous memoir from a former aide.
He may be stepping off the ballot, but the drama is following him out the door.
