LOS ANGELES — Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he is nervous about the public response to his forthcoming autobiography’s candid details about his life and those around him.

“Just being honest — it comes with a cost,” said Newsom, who made the rounds at a Democratic National Committee meeting in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Newsom, who already acknowledged that he is considering a 2028 bid for president, said he didn’t hold back in the book. His co-writer, former Los Angeles Times reporter Mark Arax, told the governor that he wouldn’t be a part of the project unless Newsom was forthcoming.

“And then you read stuff and [wonder] ‘Oh, how’s this going to read?’” said Newsom, who expects that conservative commentators will attack him over some passages.

“This is not a politician’s book, it’s not a book that you would expect me” to write, he said.

“It’s all out there.”

Many of the turbulent and personally traumatic chapters of the California politician’s life are already well-documented. In 2007, Newsom, then mayor of San Francisco, acknowledged that he had an affair with the wife of a longtime aide.

Newsom’s mother, Tessie Newsom, ended her life in 2002 at age 55 through assisted suicide after a long fight with breast cancer.

The governor has also talked about growing up watching his mother struggle to make ends meet, and how oil executive Gordon Getty and his wife, Ann, gave him experiences his parents could not afford, including an African safari when he was a teen.

It’s the third book for Newsom and comes at a pivotal time. Not only is the California governor considering a White House run, he’s become a persistent foil to President Donald Trump and vocal critic to his controversial policies, including the administration’s immigration raids in Los Angeles and failure to provide adequate federal assistance to California wildfire victims.

A promotional book tour would offer a chance to meet with voters in swing states and to appear on a range of media platforms. A memoir specifically allows the governor to reintroduce himself on his own terms at a moment when national interest in his political future is growing.

Newsom’s visit to the DNC meeting was one of his few public events since news broke that his former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, was arrested on federal corruption charges.

Williamson’s attorney McGregor Scott, a former U.S. attorney in Sacramento, told The Times in November that federal authorities had approached Williamson more than a year ago seeking help with some kind of investigation of the governor. Newsom has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Some aspects of the case described in the Williamson indictment match that of a controversial sex discrimination investigation that the state of California led into one of the world’s largest video game companies, Santa-Monica based Activision Blizzard Inc.

Newsom told The Times on Thursday that he doesn’t know whether the U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the state’s handling of the Activision case.

“I don’t know any details about it, but I’m aware of the subject matter, absolutely,” Newsom said.

In 2021, the state sued Activision, accusing it of discriminating against women and ignoring reports of egregious sexual harassment. One of the lawyers overseeing the case for the state was fired by the Newsom administration. Her chief deputy resigned and alleged that she was doing so to protest alleged interference from Newsom’s office in the investigation, a claim that the governor’s office denied.

Newsom’s visit to the Democratic National Committee meeting on Thursday was somewhat of a victory lap for the governor after passage of Proposition 50, the ballot measure that redrew California’s congressional maps to favor Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections.

The governor proposed the measure after President Trump asked Texas to redraw its congressional maps in an effort to keep Republican control of Congress.

Walking through the hallways of the InterContinental hotel, Newsom stopped every few yards for conversations with committee members at Thursday’s conference or to pose for photos. He also huddled with a group from Missouri, where Democrats are seeking to overturn new districts created by Republicans.

The governor told reporters that he would help fundraise for the Missouri Democrats’ ballot measure.

His forthcoming book, which will be published in February, is intensely personal, he said in a promotional video released this week. Many people see only his “stark white shirt, blue suit and, yeah, the gelled hair, and they think ‘Oh, I know this guy,’” he said in the video.

“This is a story about a kid who always felt like he wasn’t quite enough,” Newsom said in the video. “This is a truly vulnerable book, it was incredibly hard, even painful, to write.”

Newsom’s first book, “Citizenville, How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government,” came out in 2013 after he’d been elected lieutenant governor. He released a children’s book, “Ben and Emma’s Big Hit” in 2021 about a young boy’s love of baseball and attempts to overcome his struggles with dyslexia. The story was inspired by Newsom’s own history with dyslexia.

Last week, Newsom traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers and renew calls for billions in federal recovery aid after the Los Angeles fires.

On Thursday, Newsom announced he will deliver his final State of the State address Jan. 8 as he begins his final year as governor. Newsom has delivered his remarks in writing the last five years, breaking with the decades-old tradition of an annual in-person address to lawmakers in the state Capitol. His most recent written State of the State came unusually late, in September.

“Over the past seven years, we have tackled some of the state’s most significant problems and improved countless lives in this miraculous state, blessed and challenged by Mother Nature and enriched by ingenuity and hard work,” Newsom wrote to legislative leaders Thursday in calling for his address to be delivered in person during a joint session of the Legislature.

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