Giuliani's Wife Had Previously Unreported Marriage

March 23, 2007 — -- Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani and his wife Judith have been married six times between them, New York's tabloid newspapers reported today -- not five, as previous biographies of the couple have claimed.

"Rudy and I both have been married three times," Judith, 52, told the New York Post.

"I'd honestly like to say we got it right the first time around," she told the paper. "But that was not to be … and so what that has done for us is, I think, it makes you appreciate marriage a little bit more."

However, the news of Judith Giuliani's previously unreported marriage and divorce comes as Rudolph Giuliani, 62, the Republican presidential front-runner, gets a close look from the party's family-values conservatives.

"This is the perfect coupling for match.com: Both of them have three marriages," joked political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia to ABCNEWS.com. "Is it a key factor? No. It's one more bit of unsavory information about Giuliani's private life."

Despite a wide polling lead among Republican voters, some conservative voters have expressed concern about Giuliani's moderate positions on social issues such as abortion and the emerging details of his personal life.

That personal life was spotlighted earlier this month when Giuliani's 21-year-old son Andrew told The New York Times that he supports his father's run for president, but that their relationship is strained and he does not plan to campaign with him.

Andrew Giuliani told The Times that he and his father recently tried to reconcile after not speaking "for a decent amount of time." He attributed their problems to Judith, saying, "There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife."

Giuliani married the former Judith Nathan in 2003. He and Andrew's mother, Donna Hanover, divorced in in the early 2000s after a nasty public split that shocked even blase New Yorkers.

It now turns out it was the third marriage both for Giuliani and his most recent bride.

Judith Giuliani confirmed her previously undisclosed marriage to the Post and the New York Daily News for today's editions. The papers cited a 1974 marriage certificate and court records to fill in details about her Las Vegas marriage to Jeffrey Scott Ross in 1974, when she was 19 years old, and their subsequent divorce in 1979.

She indicated she still is on amicable terms with Ross, who did not comment to the two newspapers.

"He was a terrific guy," she told the News. "He was my first husband."

The Giuliani campaign declined further on-the-record comment to ABC News about the newly disclosed nuptials.

Judith Giuliani married her second husband, Bruce Nathan, in 1979; they were divorced in the early 1990s.

Giuliani was married to his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, from 1968 to 1982, and married Hanover, a former TV anchor, in 1984.

Sabato said Giuliani could be tainted as more conservative voters learn the details of his personal life.

"A lot of the activists out in Iowa and elsewhere do not know the messy details about his three marriages," Sabato said. "And there really are unsavory details … [such as] the terrible way he treated Donna Hanover and the flagrant adultery while he was mayor. No wonder his son feels the way he does about him."

ABC News' Michael S. James and Sunlen Miller contributed to this report.