Newt Gingrich's ex-wife, Marianne, says that the former speaker will never be president. | AP Close

Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife is speaking out for the first time, telling Esquire that there is “no way” the man she stood by during his tenure as speaker of the House will be president.   

“He could have been president,” Marianne Gingrich said in an interview for a profile on Newt published Tuesday in Esquire. “But when you try and change your history too much, and try and recolor it because you don't like the way it was or you want it to be different to prove something new ... you lose touch with who you really are. You lose your way.” 

Asked about her ex-husband's presidential ambitions, Marianne replied: "There's no way."   

The former speaker’s ex-wife added that Newt “believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected.”   

“If you believe that, then yeah, you can run for president,” she said.   

Gingrich has always been “impressed easily by position, status, money,” said his ex-wife.   

“He grew up poor and always wanted to be somebody, to make a difference, to prove himself, you know,” she said. “He has to be historic to justify his life.”   

Marianne, who has not changed her name since divorcing the former speaker in 2000, also for the first time dished details on their marriage and how her ex-husband — now on his third marriage — asked for a divorce.   

“We started talking and we never quit until he asked me for a divorce,” she told Esquire of their relationship.
Newt asked her to marry him “within weeks” of their relationship's start. 

"He asked me to marry him way too early. And he wasn't divorced yet. I should have known there was a problem," she said. “It's not so much a compliment to me. It tells you a little bit about him.”   

Newt married his first wife Jackie Battley when he was just 19 years old and divorced her in 1981, soon after he met Marianne.   

According to Marianne, Newt orchestrated much the same maneuver in getting his divorce from her, having already asked then-congressional aide Callista Bisek to marry him.   

“He'd already asked her to marry him before he asked me for a divorce,” Marianne said of Newt’s marriage to Callista. “Before he even asked [me].”   

A Gingrich aide told POLITICO that the former speaker was not yet commenting on the profile.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40880.html#ixzz0wGSmcIgT