What happened to Rudy Giuliani?
Rudolph Giuliani was once one of the most admired men in the world. He was “America’s Mayor,” Knight of the British Empire, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a AAA-certified hero. He was the type of hero for whom monuments, airports, highways, schools, museums, train stations, bridges, warships and great institutions are named.
What happened to him? What is wrong with him? What caused him to snap? Why did he melt down? What was the malfunction? How did it happen?
It is an astonishing story about the disintegration of a man and his myth. There is a truth about greatness. It is ephemeral. When Ulysses Grant died he was the most famous man in the world. It would have been considered inconceivable that he would one day be barely remembered within the union he saved. Frederick Douglass, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., Nathan Hale, Chester W. Nimitz, Harriet Tubman and Harry Truman are barely remembered within our national memory. The same is true for thousands of exceptional individuals who were titans in their fields in their moments of time within the great unfolding ribbon of history. When they passed great encomiums were offered around the certainty that their legacies would be known by all people for all time, who would be both grateful and connected to their achievements. It never works out like that. Everyone moves on and forward, and in time, forgets even the greatest and most important characters of an epoch like the wave takes away a footprint in the sand.
Rudy Giuliani will be different. His ignominy and disgrace will endure with the brilliance of the New York City skyline. There have been exceedingly few Americans who stand more thoroughly fallen, shamed and disgraced than him who live outside the walls of a penitentiary.
His conduct isn’t just reprehensible. It is depraved beyond comprehension. The excerpts beggar belief. There was a moment in time that Rudolph Giuliani was routinely compared to Elliot Ness. He was the colorful, tough-as-nails and incorruptible prosecutor at war with the five families. He broke the New York mob, and went on to transform New York City.
Now, he is being sued by Noelle Dunphy. She claims that the former mayor offered her $1 million annually in 2019, contingent upon her meeting his sexual demands. She was forced to fellate him, while he was flush with Viagra, which he “took constantly” and booze, while “selling pardons for $2 million, which he and Donald Trump would split.” Apparently Rudy liked to pretend that he was Bill Clinton. Shouldn’t it be mentioned that the Clintons might have been on to something when they tried to tell us they were being relentlessly pursued by a conspiracy of weirdos and nut balls?
The collapse of Rudy Giuliani is beyond operatic. It is beyond epic.
I know Rudy Giuliani. He asked me to run his presidential campaign in 2008. I demurred. I’ve been around him. I’m from New Jersey. He was a New York media fixture during my childhood. I completely get the drama, the antics, the histrionics, and other Rudy behavior.
What do you think is wrong with him? What happened to this guy? I’d love to hear what you think because I just can’t explain it.
I’ve known (or knew) Rudy since 1983. He was always strange. Particularly awkward and static, he owes every bit of his public persona and success to his ex-wife Donna Hanover. He knew nothing of media presence and his “hero” energy was nothing more than blustery anger and ambition at that time. He lacked charisma and awareness. The Reagan era gave us the beginnings of Rudy’s public myth as well as Trump. It was a time of myth. Nothing that has been revealed about Giuliani has surprised me a bit. He was always a bully. A walking vulgarity. Donna cleaned him up, coached him and genuinely loved him. He was no prize! I remember his breakfasts with Christine Letegano, the sneers from Peter Powers, at that same table. His story was spun around the circumstances and timing of events. Having known him privately and professionally on many levels, I’ve seen and heard the real Rudy. This is him, and nothing happened to him. He’s just gotten older and sloppy.
I don’t think people understand what chronic alcohol abuse does to the brain. Couple that with a weak character that needs attention more than it stands by any moral compass and you can see how a man like this becomes Rudy 2023.