‘Being married is hard’: Graham Platner’s wife rips media reports of her husband’s sexual texts as ‘gossip’

Graham Platner’s wife called the media reports that her husband had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women “shameful” over the weekend, the latest controversy to hit the Maine Democrat’s whirlwind Senate campaign.

Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, posted a video taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the five-minute video, Gertner avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts, dubbing the broader coverage as “gossip” and saying that “being married is hard.”

“I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip,” she said in the informal, selfie-style video where she walked along a road. “No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage.”

Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely watched Senate races as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the party’s efforts to win control of the narrowly divided Senate. The Maine primary is June 9.

Genevieve McDonald, a then-campaign staffer for Platner, told the The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”

Platner told reporters Sunday that what McDonald had said wasn’t true. Asked if he was confirming that the tex...