Andrew Gillum speaks publicly for first time since being found drunk in a hotel with gay porn actor and meth

Former Tallahassee mayor and Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum spoke publicly on Instagram for the first time since entering rehab following a night during which he was found heavily intoxicated in a hotel room with a gay porn actor and bags of crystal meth.

Gillum, 40, was considered one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party — even after losing the gubernatorial race to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis by half a percentage point — before his career trajectory came to a screeching halt in March in a Miami Beach hotel room. He blamed the incident on an alcohol problem and entered rehab.

"I went away to rehab to focus on my issues with alcoholism, having grown up in a household where my father battled addiction to alcohol, and later died from that addiction," Gillum said. "I knew well the toll it took on my father's dreams and ambitions."

The former mayor said he underestimated how much of an impact losing the governor's race had on him, but now says it sent him into a depression that he tried and failed to suppress and numb with alcohol, culminating with a humiliating breakdown in Miami Beach.

"My stuff had to be public and cause great embarrassment and rumors, some false, some true, the shame that I felt from all of that, the harm I caused, that was tearing me up," Gillum said. "I needed real help to try to unpack that."

On March 12, when Gillum claims he was in Miami Beach celebrating a friend's wedding, police found a disturbing scene in a hotel room with Gillum and two other men, one of whom is a gay porn actor.

Aldo Mejias told police he gave his credit card to a man named Travis Dyson to book a hotel room in Miami Beach. When Mejias arrived, he found Dyson and Andrew Gillum in the room "under the influence of an unknown substance."

Mejias said Dyson "collapsed in a prone position" on the bed, and Gillum was in the bathroom vomiting. Dyson was struggling to breathe, so Mejias called police and fire rescue.

Gillum was unable to speak to officers "due to his inebriated state," according to the incident report.

"Inside of the hotel room, officers observed in plain sight three small clear plastic baggies containing suspected crystal meth on both the bed and floor of the hotel room," the incident report stated.

Gillum said his wife stuck with him after the compromising situation.

"[She] knows what I am and knows what I am not," Gillum said. "She chooses to love me anyhow."

(H/T Politico)