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RUDY JUDI’S BOMBSHELL

Rudy Giuliani’s wife, Judith, made a shocking revelation yesterday that stunned even those close to the White House hopeful – he isn’t her second husband, but her third.

“Something I will share with you is that, since I haven’t done [many] interviews . . . Rudy and I have both been married three times,” Judith told The Post.

It was the first time she has publicly disclosed the bombshell information.

Several longtime Giuliani supporters said they had thought he was her second husband, and profiles about Judith Giuliani – who has revealed little about herself publicly before – have always referred to her as twice-married.

“We both married young,” she told The Post yesterday in an interview. “And then we were both married again. And it took us until this stage in life to realize and find the person that we eventually wanted to grow old with.”

She continued, “And so hopefully, by the time you’re 52 years old . . . you have figured out how important marriage is to you if you chose to get married again.”

Rudy Giuliani, 62, learned about his wife’s first husband early in their relationship, she and her aides said.

The revelation comes at a time when the former mayor’s political opponents are attempting to make an issue of his marital history, especially among social conservatives.

Aides said that the first of Mrs. Giuliani’s husbands was Jeffrey Scott Ross. She married him on Dec. 8, 1974, shortly after she was certified as a nurse, records show.

They tied the knot when she was just shy of 20 years old in a Las Vegas wedding chapel.

Ross could not be reached for comment last night.

They met while working at a firm called U.S. Surgical, and are still on good terms and in touch, the aides said.

Records show they were divorced in Florida in 1979, which is reportedly the same year she married husband No, 2, Bruce Nathan.

News of the Ross marriage highlighted how little has been known about Judith and how quiet she has remained since her relationship with Giuliani became public in May 2000, while he was still married to second wife Donna Hanover.

Past profiles based on interviews with friends, including a New York Times piece in 2001, described Judith meeting Bruce Nathan “soon after” she got her nursing degree from Penn State in 1974, and marrying him in 1979. The profiles make no mention of Ross.

Aides said yesterday that her first marriage was over by the time she began a relationship with Nathan.

Asked why Judith, who grew up in the working-class town of Hazleton, Pa., never opted to go public after numerous published accounts said she’d been married twice, a campaign spokesman said she’d never done major interviews before and wasn’t spending time correcting news stories.

“Some people choose not to get married again,” Judith said. “Rudy and I believe very strongly in the institution of marriage. I’d honestly like to say we both got it right the first time around.

“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.”

She called her current husband “a beauty” repeatedly throughout the interview, saying each spouse complements the other.

Judith and Bruce Nathan split in 1992. They have a daughter, Whitney, who was the subject of a bitter custody battle between them in 2001.

The interview was conducted in the offices of Changing Our World, the charity consulting firm where Judith Giuliani works. The campaign would not allow a Post photographer to take pictures of her.

In other moments in the interview, Judith said:

* She and her husband “both share having been raised in close-knit Catholic families.”

* Rudy is “not someone to – let’s see what’s the right word that I feel comfortable using – waffle. Rudy believes in getting a job done, and he has a set of morals and values that he believes in, and he carries those forth.”

* She’s been taking part in the campaign’s policy briefings. But she said she hasn’t given much thought to the candidacy of her husband’s main Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“I think my husband would be the most qualified candidate for president . . . I certainly think that Mrs. Clinton is very intelligent. But beyond that, Rudy and I discuss what Rudy’s visions are for the country.”

Additional reporting by Dareh Gregorian and Clemente Lisi

maggie.haberman@nypost.com