A new report detailed how Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, ruined his marriage after repeatedly cheating on his first wife.
Sources revealed to Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman that Hegseth admitted to then-wife Meredith Schwarz that he had been unfaithful in November 2008, four years after being wed.
"According to a source, he showed up at Schwarz's parents' house in Forest Lake wearing his Army uniform and admitted his infidelity," Sherman wrote.
Hegseth spoke to Schwarz's brother by phone for four hours the following day, a source told the reporter.
"Pete said he no longer believed in God and family values. He claimed he no longer wanted to seek the limelight. He said, and this quote is as clear as day, 'I'm a f---ed up individual,'" the source said.
After trying to make the marriage work, Hegseth later admitted that he had continued cheating on Schwarz and had had at least five affairs, the sources said. During divorce proceedings, Schwarz reportedly refused Hegseth's request to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
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"There exists an irretrievable breakdown of the parties' marriage relationship…due to Respondent's infidelity," divorce papers filed in Hennepin County confirmed.
The revelations about Hegseth's first marriage follow allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 and reports that he was forced out of two veterans organizations for aggressive drunkenness.
According to a 2018 email published by The New York Times, Hegseth's mother admonished him as an "abuser of women."