Pelosi Attacker Was Nudist With a Girlfriend Named Gypsy, Made Hemp Jewelry

More information continues to emerge about 42-year-old David DePape—the man who violently assaulted Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi, an 82-year-old businessman with ties to real estate and venture capitalism, was attacked in the couple's San Francisco home on Friday morning by DePape who was armed with a hammer. The Berkeley man reportedly indicated that his intended target was Speaker Pelosi and was yelling "Where is Nancy?" before attacking her husband. DePape was arrested by police while Pelosi was taken to a nearby hospital where he is currently recovering from surgery to repair a skull fracture.

In the aftermath of the alarming incident, numerous details have come to light regarding DePape, including political leanings and conspiratorial tendencies that likely contributed to the attack. Additional details about his personal life have also emerged, painting an increasingly unorthodox picture.

DePape, according to an Associated Press report, grew up in the Canadian city of Powell River, British Columbia, leaving for the San Francisco area roughly 20 years ago to live with an older girlfriend. In more recent years, DePape has often been affiliated with a prominent pro-nudist activism group in the Bay Area, with a San Francisco Chronicle Friday report stating that he was known as a sort of "father figure" at a group home in Berkeley that was populated by members of the group.

Politico reported Friday that DePape was known to have attended several nudist protests across the Bay Area in the early 2010s, speaking out against local ordinances requiring residents to wear clothing in public. A photo has also been circulating online showing the attacker, with clothes on, at a nudist wedding in 2013. As of that wedding nine years ago, he was also known to make jewelry products out of hemp.

DePape is known to have had a long-term relationship with a woman named Gypsy Taub, whom he originally left British Columbia to be with. The pair reportedly has two children together, with DePape also having another child by a different woman. The current status of their relationship is unclear.

Taub seemingly provides a link between DePape's life in Berkeley and his more recent conspiratorial leanings. In the past, she hosted a public-access television program called "Uncensored 9/11," in which she discussed conspiracies surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks in the nude.

In the wake of his attack on Pelosi, DePape has been found to have espoused numerous mainstream and right-wing conspiracy theories, including the belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, climate change denial, COVID-19 vaccine and mask skepticism, and other ideas associated with QAnon. He also suggested that the ongoing war in Ukraine might be manipulated by Jewish people as part of a scheme to buy land.

Newsweek reached out to the San Francisco Police for comment.