Gavin Newsom Told a Predominantly Black Crowd He’s ‘Just Like Them’ Because He ‘Can’t Read’ — While Promoting His Memoir. The Clip Has 35 Million Views

California Governor Gavin Newsom wants you to know he’s just a regular guy. He can’t read. He barely passed the SATs. He grew up scraping by on frozen lasagna and mac and cheese — never mind the billionaire family friends, the winery empire, or the $30 million net worth.

And on Sunday night at the Rialto Center for the Arts in Atlanta, he wanted a predominantly Black audience to know that too. That he’s just like them. Because he can’t read.

‘I’m Like You’

Newsom was in Georgia for the launch of his memoir, Young Man in a Hurry, seated alongside Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens for a conversation hosted by A Cappella Books. The event doubled as a political appearance — Newsom endorsed former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor earlier that day, and his multi-state book tour has all the subtlety of a 2028 presidential exploratory committee.

When Dickens asked what he hoped readers would take from the book, Newsom leaned in with what was clearly meant to be disarming vulnerability.

“I’m not trying to impress you,” Newsom said. “I’m just trying to impress upon you I’m like you. I’m no better than you. I’m a 960 SAT guy.”

He paused. “I’m not trying to offend anyone — trying to act all there if you got 940.”

Then: “You’ve never seen me read a speech, because I cannot read a speech. Maybe the wrong business to be in.”

The audience chuckled. Dickens nodded along. And then the clip hit the internet — where it has now been viewed over 35 million times.

His SAT score is still higher than the average Black test-taker’s

Here’s where Newsom’s self-deprecation starts to curdle. The average SAT score for Black test-takers, according to 2024 College Board data, is 907 out of 1600. The national average is 1024. Newsom scored 960 — and chose to tell a room in a city that is nearly half Black that his below-average score was evidence they were the same.

He wasn’t bonding over shared policy frustrations or economic anxiety. He chose test scores and the inability to read. The question nobody in the room asked him was the one the internet couldn’t stop asking: What exactly did he think the audience had in common with him?

He was literally sitting next to a book with his name on it

Sitting between Newsom and Dickens during the entire exchange was a copy of Young Man in a Hurry — the book Newsom wrote, the book that brought him to Atlanta, the book that costs up to $100 for a premium-seat ticket to hear him discuss.

A man promoting a book he wrote told people he can’t read. The contradiction was right there on the table. Literally.

Newsom has spoken publicly for years about living with dyslexia, and he mentioned it again Sunday — the kid in the back of the classroom praying the teacher wouldn’t call on him. That’s a real struggle. But struggling with dyslexia and telling a predominantly Black audience “I’m like you — I can’t read” are two very different conversations. Newsom merged them into one.

‘As If They’re Children’

Rapper Nicki Minaj posted an extended response on X that went further than most. “His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can’t read,” she wrote. Then she pointed to something subtler — his delivery. “He’s literally slowing his speech down & talking in a sporadic cadence. As if they’re children.”

Watch the clip again with that lens. Then compare it to any of his podcast appearances or press conferences from the past six months.

The ‘Grew Up Poor’ Problem

This isn’t Newsom’s first stumble with the regular-guy routine. His father was a state appeals court judge who managed the Getty family trust — valued in the billions. The Gettys took young Gavin on vacations to Canada and Kenya. At 24, Gordon Getty bankrolled Newsom’s first business: PlumpJack wine shop, which grew into an empire of wineries, restaurants, and hotels. That same year, he appeared in a San Francisco Chronicle feature titled, with no apparent irony, “Children of the Rich.”

None of that disqualifies someone from public service. But it makes “I’m just like you” ring hollow when you’re saying it to a room of people who probably didn’t have a billionaire funding their first business.

His team says he’s said this before. That doesn’t help.

Newsom’s spokesperson dismissed the backlash as “MAGA-manufactured outrage,” noting the governor has told this story to many audiences, including conservative ones. Which is true — but also kind of the point. The question isn’t whether he’s said it before. It’s why he chose SAT scores and illiteracy as the bridge to a predominantly Black audience in Atlanta, during a trip designed to court the very voters Democrats need in Georgia.

Newsom himself went further. Responding directly to Sean Hannity on X, he told him to “spare me your fake fucking outrage” and pivoted to Trump’s history of racially charged rhetoric — the “ape video” of President Obama, the “shitholes” comment about African nations.

It’s a forceful response — to an accusation nobody in the room was making. The question was never whether Newsom is a racist. It’s whether a man with a $30 million net worth and a billionaire-funded business empire should be telling a Black audience he’s just like them because he can’t read.

Newsom’s book tour continues this week in South Carolina, then New York. His memoir is called Young Man in a Hurry. Based on Sunday, he might want to slow down.