Two years after leaving office amid a sex scandal — in which he covered up an affair by claiming he had been off hiking the Appalachian Trail — ex-South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is engaged to his Argentine mistress, Maria Belén Chapur.
“Yes, we are engaged, and I’m both happy and excited for what that means,” he told CNN. “I have long expressed my feelings for her. She’s a wonderful person. My closest friends have met and love her.”
Sanford, 52, proposed to Chapur, a journalist in her 40s, at a Buenos Aires restaurant, the Argentine newspaper Clarín reported.
Arriving early, he had a waiter fool her into thinking she’d won a contest while he hid in a bathroom. He then emerged to surprise her with a proposal.
The one-time GOP star went AWOL for six days in 2009 and later admitted he was with his “soul mate,” Chapur. His aides had told reporters he was hiking. His wife, Jenny, divorced him later that year.