Former N.J. Gov. James E. McGreevey, who stepped out of the spotlight two years ago when he resigned amid a gay-sex scandal, is talking to the world again.

McGreevey taped an interview in Chicago yesterday with Oprah Winfrey to launch a monthlong publicity tour for his political coming-out memoir, The Confession. But the show will not air until Tuesday, to coincide with the book's national release.

McGreevey, 49, arrived at the Chicago television studio and waved and smiled at reporters from a sport-utility vehicle as it pulled into a parking garage. But the former governor, who is reportedly contractually prohibited from speaking publicly until the book hits stores, did not stop to take questions.

State Sen. Ray Lesniak, who attended with about a dozen other McGreevey friends, including Rahway Mayor Jim Kennedy, said through a spokesman yesterday that a confidentiality agreement prevented him from talking about the experience.

But earlier this week, Lesniak, who said Oprah's staff interviewed him ahead of time, provided some hints about the show. He said the focus was on McGreevey's metamorphosis from a guarded and conflicted man to one who is openly gay and comfortable in his own skin.

Lesniak said that McGreevey, who was scheduled to be interviewed on several other shows, decided to tell his story to Oprah first in part because of the show's angle.

"McGreevey wants this to be about his life, then and now and in the future, and the transformation of him identifying with being a gay American," Lesniak said. "I believe the other shows would have taken on more of a political slant, which he's not running away from... but he doesn't want that to be the focus, because he feels it's so much more than politics."

The Confession follows McGreevey - whose live-in partner accompanied him to yesterday's taping - through two marriages, his meteoric rise to the Governor's Office, and his sudden fall from power.

In August 2004, the married McGreevey came out to the world as a "gay American" and admitted to an adulterous affair with a man. Friends say that man was Golan Cipel, an Israeli national McGreevey had appointed to be a state homeland security adviser. Cipel denied the affair and instead claimed sexual harassment by McGreevey. It was fear that those claims would be made public that ultimately prompted the governor's resignation.

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