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SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (CBS/AP) ― The estranged wife of the nation's first openly gay governor says she was forced to write her own memoir to tell her side of the story.

Dina Matos McGreevey, who is divorcing former New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, continued the media blitz Wednesday for her new book, "Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage," published on Tuesday.

The former first lady of New Jersey appeared on Good Morning America, saying she still feels anger toward McGreevey, who announced to the world in 2004 that he was "a gay American."

"I don't think he's still acknowledged the damage that he's done to me and to my family and that's very difficult to accept," Matos McGreevey said.

She also said if she knew McGreevey was gay, she "absolutely" would not have married him. She said she didn't spend her time chasing rumors or innuendo about her husband.

"I wish someone had said something to me," she said, adding that her husband's "entire life was a performance."

Tuesday, on the day her book was released, she appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and at a book signing at a Barnes and Noble in Springfield, N.J., where she now lives.

"Silent Partner" is Matos McGreevey's response to her husband's memoir, "The Confession," published last September. In it, he described his sexual attraction to a male aide and wrote that he married Matos McGreevey in order to advance his political career.

In divorce papers filed recently, the former governor claims that his wife "knew of my sexual orientation before our marriage" and "chose to either ignore it or block it out of her mind, even when questioned by her friends."

On Tuesday, Matos McGreevey told "Oprah" viewers that she never knew her husband was gay and was shocked when he confessed his sexuality to her.

"It just hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn't absorbing it," Matos McGreevey said. "I just started to cry."

She stood with a frozen-faced smile beside her husband as he made the public announcement about his sexuality nearly three years ago.

"I smiled because I didn't want to break down," she said. "He told me, you have to be Jackie Kennedy today. And I'm thinking, Jackie Kennedy? Her husband was murdered. You cheated on me and I have to be Jackie Kennedy?"

Matos McGreevey said she remains skeptical about his true sexual orientation.

"I'm not in denial, but I don't think he's simply gay. I think he's bisexual," she said. "I mean, he was married twice. He has two children. And, you know, I never saw him checking out men, but I certainly saw him checking out women."

James McGreevey, who appeared on Winfrey's show last fall, said he was not planning to watch his wife's interview and declined to comment on her statements.

"I wish her well," he said.

Wearing a yellow blazer and black pants at the book signing, Matos McGreevey spoke for less than two minutes.

"Over the last 21/2, almost three years, I've tried to stay in the background and away from the limelight and the media," Matos McGreevey told the crowd of about 100 people, mostly women, at the book signing event.

"I was hoping that I could go on rebuilding my life and stay in the background, but I was forced to write this book because there was so much interest and frankly I was tired of people concocting my life story."

She read from a chapter of the book, describing the first time she met her future husband at a dinner organized by a Portuguese-American group.

She said he was "handsome in a Tom Hanks kind of way, despite his old-fashioned barbershop haircut."

She also took four preselected questions before signing books. One asked who should play her if her life story was made into a movie.

"Nicole Kidman, but she's too tall," the petite Matos McGreevey joked, before mentioning Reese Witherspoon.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)