Book Claims Sarah Palin Had One-Night Stand with NBA Star Glen Rice

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is facing allegations about her past that threten derail any political ambitions. A new book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, authored by Joe McGinniss, alleges that Palin used cocaine and marijuana, had a one-night stand with NBA star Glen Rice and had a long-term affair with her husband's business partner.

McGinniss, whose many nonfiction works include a bestseller about Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential run, spent four months last year interviewing Palin's official and personal associates while living in a rented home right next to Palin's residence on the shore of Lake Lucille in Wasilla, Alaska.

The book will be published in the U.S. next week, though the major shockers were made public by Garry Trudeau, the Doonesbury cartoonist, who obtained a copy, days before the release.

Trudeau cites named sources including Gary Wheeler, Palin's former head of security, describing her as a housewife who happened to be a governor and would regularly leave work at 3 p.m. for shopping trips, The New York Times reported.

According to the book, nine months before her marriage to Todd Palin, Sarah Heath spent a night with the basketball player Glen Rice, in her sister's dorm room at the University of Alaska. According to initial reports, McGinniss has obtained a quote from Rice who confirmed having slept with Palin.

Palin allegedly smoked marijuana with one of her college professors and snorted cocaine while on a snowmobiling trip with her husband. Her alleged six-month affair was with Brad Hanson, who used to be Todd Palin's business associate.

The book has been very carefully examined for factual accuracy. People will see that it is a very revelatory portrait of Mrs. Palin. It looks closely at her entire life and political career and will reveal some previously unknown aspects of her story, David Drake, Crown's publicity director, told the Times.

In May last year, Palin made a public display of her loathing for McGinniss, when he moved next door, by erecting a tall wooden fence between them to deny him a view, she said, of her daughter's bedroom and the family swimming hole.