When Lois Romano, a reporter for The Washington Post, asked Hart to respond to rumors spread by other campaigns that he was a "womanizer", Hart said such candidates were "not going to win that way, because you don't get to the top by tearing someone else down."[39] The New York Post reported that comment on its front page with the headline lead in "Straight from the Hart", followed below with big, black block letters: "Gary: I'm No Womanizer.'", and then a summary of the story: "Dem blasts rivals over sex life rumors".[39][40]:86
In late April 1987, The Miami Herald claimed that an anonymous informant[A] contacted the paper to relate that Hart was having an affair with a friend, claimed it was the equivalent of the Iran-Contra scandal, provided details about the affair, and told the Herald that Hart was going to meet this person at his Washington, D.C., townhouse on May 1.[41][43]:28 As a result, a team of Herald reporters followed Donna Rice on a flight from Miami to Washington, D.C., then staked out Hart's townhouse that evening and the next Saturday, and observed a young woman and Hart together.[44] The Herald reporters confronted Hart on Saturday evening in an alley about his relationship with Rice.[41][44] Hart replied, "I'm not involved in any relationship," and alleged that he had been set up.[44][B]
The Herald published a story on May 3 that Hart had spent Friday night and most of Saturday with a young woman in his Washington, D.C. townhouse. On that same day, in an interview with E. J. Dionne that appeared in the New York Times, Hart, responding to the rumors of his womanizing, said: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored."[45] At some point the reporters for the Herald learned that the New York Times was planning to feature the quote in their article on Sunday. When the two articles appeared on the same day a political firestorm was ignited.[41] On Sunday, Hart's campaign denied any scandal and condemned the Herald's reporters for intrusive reporting.[46] Hart later noted that his "follow me around" comment was not "challenging the press with a taunt", but, made in frustration, was only intended to invite the media to observe his public behavior, and never intended to invite reporters to be "skulking around in the shadows" of his home.[47] '"He did not think of it as a challenge," Dionne would recall many years later. "And at the time, I did not think of it as a challenge."'[41] Nor did Hart's comment influence the Miami Herald to pursue the story.[48]