While still a junior in high school, Newt Gingrich began an affair with his high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, in 1959. He was 16 at the time, and she was 23. The official story is that the pair began dating when Gingrich turned 18, but people who know him well, including his ex-wife Marianne Gingrich, who spoke to Esquire, say he was 16.