Jasmine Ray Wants Eric Adams Back (In the Mayor's Race)

Jasmine Ray knows the pain of missing Eric Adams when he is gone. 

Now, the mayor's ex-girlfriend says she's trying to ensure that New Yorkers don't suffer the same kind of heartache, by "beginning what I want to call the 'Draft Eric Back' campaign" to convince him to restart the reelection fight he gave up last week.

"I hope that New York City would consider giving him a second chance, and I want him to get back in the race," Ray told me.

The mayor's former director of the Office of Sports, Wellness and Recreation is the author of the just-released memoir, "Political Humanity," about her life and relationship with Adams. On Friday night, she sat down with me and another journalist at a Mediterranean restaurant near Grand Central Station to talk about her book.

"I especially wrote it for this moment. I want people to get to know the serious man with the tailored suit," Ray said. "I want them to get to know who he really is."

Ray, wearing a black turtleneck sweater with her hair up, gave the same story of her relationship with the mayor as his office did once news of their relationship broke. They dated for eight months starting in 2015. Before that, they were friends, and they've been friends since, Ray said. She described the mayor as funny, romantic, silly, and inquisitive. 

"I think he's an amazing person," Ray said. "But there's been a disconnect since he's been the mayor—he's not that guy." She says she's always been in the background encouraging him to show the city the man she knows: "Show them who you really are."

As recounted in "Political Humanity," the pair met at the Barclays Center in 2014 while Ray worked for Red Bull. Adams, then Brooklyn Borough President, entered with his son Jordan and some of Jordan's friends. He invited her to his office in Borough Hall, where she later pitched the idea of building a wallball court on Cadman Plaza—Ray is the founder and CEO of the United States Wallball Association, a nonprofit organization she created in the wake of her younger brother's death in 2009. 

In the meeting, she said, his staff was as enthusiastic about her idea as the mayor; Ingrid Lewis-Martin, she noted, was particularly helpful, and later found her blueprints of the plaza. The rest of the staff, she claimed, changed their tune as soon as the mayor left the room. "Everyone was like, it can't be done," she said. "They were like no way." After shutting her idea down, they ushered her out. But they didn't know she had Adams's number.