In True Gretch, Gretchen Whitmer Shares What She Does When 'Your Figure Becomes a Matter of Public Discussion' (Exclusive)

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made a name for herself as a straight shooter, and her new memoir is no exception.

True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between comes out July 9 from Simon & Schuster and covers the Michigan governor's career from her early days as a lawyer and legislator to her 2018 election to steering the state through crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and a 500-year flood.

But it also gets personal as Whitmer shares stories about her larger-than-life family members, her lifelong clumsy streak and how she deploys her signature wry sense of humor in response to inappropriate comments.

Below, in an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE, Whitmer reflects on the lessons she learned from her Grandma Gretchen, and how those helped her stay grounded in the face of commentary on her body while running for office.

I loved our summer trips to go visit Grandma Gretchen, my mom’s mother, down in Bradenton, Fla. She had a bike gang — not motorcycles, but a group of feisty, fun women who’d ride their bikes to McDonald’s for breakfast. She’d wear a crocheted hat with a pompom on top and a little wig fringe hanging off the back, so she didn’t have to do her long salt-and-pepper hair. And then she’d go tooling off on her Schwinn, her purse in the front basket, to meet her friends. 

All of her grandkids loved spending time with her, because she’d scratch our heads with her long red fingernails and sometimes treat us to dinner at the “Red Lobster House” (as she called it). For Christmas, she always gave us those little individually wrapped Andes mints and let us choose from a grab bag of gifts. But my favorite thing she did was this: She’d pull you into a tight hug and whisper into your ear, “You’re my favorite child.” And as she was doing that, she’d be winking over your shoulder at whoever else was nearby and silently mouthing the words, You are! 

This cracked us up every time. Everybody always wants to be their grandma’s favorite kid. Grandma Gretchen did us one better, though — she let us in on the joke.

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Because we all learned at an early age not to take ourselves too seriously, we’re also pretty good at not taking things personally. This turns out to be a particularly useful skill when you’re a public figure. Or, as I unfortunately discovered during my first term as governor, when your figure becomes a matter of public discussion.

About six weeks after the inauguration, it was time to deliver the State of the State address. My staff and I worked hard on the speech, which was my first opportunity to lay out a plan for what we were going to accomplish for Michigan. I wanted to nail this speech, to show confidence as a newly elected governor and chart a path forward for fixing our (d---) roads, cleaning up our drinking water, securing rights for the LGBTQ+ community and improving our education system. 

In the days leading up to the speech, I got a couple of dresses from Rent the Runway. I decided to wear a bright blue dress that was almost identical in style to a dark red one I’d worn on election night three months before. 

The night of the speech, I felt great. I spoke in the grand, historic House chamber in the Capitol building for nearly an hour, finishing up with a message about bipartisanship. “We all have families. We all care about our kids’ and our grandkids’ futures. We all want what’s best for our communities and our state,” I said. As I caught the eyes of my girls and my husband in the front row, I delivered my final lines: “The question is, do we have the wisdom to put partisanship aside and get the job done for the people we serve? I think we do. So, let’s get to work.” 

The chamber erupted in applause, and I left the rostrum feeling invigorated. The speech had gone as well as I could have hoped. We got all the important stuff right.

Then the fashion police showed up. The following evening, the Detroit Fox News affiliate aired a story on ... my dress. Or rather, on the comments people made about it, and more specifically about my body, on Fox 2’s Facebook page. The comments Fox 2 chose to highlight read like a giant sexist haiku:

“Dress is looking a little tight.” 

“I’d hit it.” 

“Push-up bra, clearly.” 

“Look how tight it is on her arms.”

“Heavy up top.” 

And then, chef’s kiss, this bit: 

“Some Facebook users also asked if her breasts are real, with posts asking what size they are. One man said, ‘nice rack,’ and another [said] ‘She’s showing off her cans. Why not? You got it? Share it.’”

My ... cans? Seriously? 

Until this report came out, I had felt good about my speech. But when I watched this report about people criticizing my body, I was hurt. Not because people didn’t think I looked good — I don’t care about that. It was because I was trying to do something good, and met with a torrent of demoralizing, superficial sexist commentary. 

My thoughts went to my daughters, Sydney and Sherry. They were teenagers now, and here was an in-your-face reminder of the kind of BS they’d have to deal with as young women. Just three months earlier, Michigan voters had elected women to serve as our state’s governor, attorney general and secretary of state. Our new chief justice of the Supreme Court was a woman. The 2018 elections were dubbed the “Year of the Woman.” And still we had to deal with this kind of crap.

No matter how many times it happens, I’m somehow always surprised at the things people are willing to say not only about me, but to me. Some of them are meant as compliments (I think?), but my God, the way they come out. Once, I was door-knocking during a Senate campaign, and a man answered in his bathrobe. After looking me up and down, he said, “Huh. You look much bigger on television.” It was clear that he meant this as a compliment — that I was more to his liking in person — so I said, “Thank you.” Which is really all you can say in these situations.

Similarly, a woman said to me not long ago, “Oh, I am so glad you’re buying better bras!” At my confused look, she went on, “You don’t remember, but I told you four years ago that you really needed better bras. Your boobs were too low.” She was right, I didn’t remember. And the truth was, I was still wearing the same brand of bras. But I smiled and said, “Thank you.” Because I’m pretty sure she meant to be supportive (ha ha). And if not, I chose to take it that way anyway.

Excerpted from True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between by Gretchen Whitmer. Copyright © 2024 by Gretchen Whitmer. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between comes out July 9 and is available for preorder now wherever books are sold.