Gillum’s Instagram post focused on his own personal growth since the incident rocked Florida Democratic politics. Gillum expressed remorse for what he did, acknowledging that it was normal to feel “guilty for the harm he has caused someone. This is how he knows he is human. This is how he knows he is not a sociopath.”
But Gillum said the public shame of the incident had weighed heavily on him, and called it something “completely different” that “cuts you off.”
“My things had to be public and cause great shame and rumors, some false, some true, the shame I felt for all of that … it was tearing me apart,” said Gillum. “I needed real help trying to unpack that.”
Gillum said his wife, R. Jai Gillum, had been a great ally as he faced the pressures of public life and dealt with the consequences of the Miami Beach incident. His wife “knows what I am and knows what I am not,” said Andrew Gillum. “She chooses to love me anyway.”
Gillum also used the publication to acknowledge some of the country’s troubles, from the coronavirus pandemic to national recognition of the breed after the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. He said feeling the challenges of being a black man in the United States had also affected his mental health, prompting him to “look for other ways to ease that pressure.”
Gillum lost the governor’s career to Ron DeSantis in 2018 by half a percentage point. Before the race, Gillum had served as mayor of Tallahassee. He had planned to register millions of voters in the run-up to the 2020 elections and was a regular contributor on CNN. POLITICO reported that friends said Gillum began withdrawing from their lives after the incident in the Miami Beach hotel room.
