photo of Rielle Hunter by Mark Seliger for GQ
I'm past caring that John Edwards cheated on his wife who was dying of cancer while he was running for President of the United States, fathered a child out of wedlock, denied it publicly and had a friend cover-up for him, all the while a sex tape was lurking in the background.
Past caring.
But the news that Rielle Hunter had finally gone public in a magazine interview with GQ, complete with provocative full-color photos, was too much to ignore, a gaper's block on the freeway.
According to Barbara Walters, who disclosed Monday morning on ABC's The View that she'd chatted privately with Rielle Hunter, Edwards' former mistress is said to be '"repulsed" by some of the photos GQ used in their spread and "cried for two hours" after seeing them.
The photos in question, which were taken by photographer Mark Seliger for GQ, involve Hunter lounging around in a man's shirt with no pants. . .surrounded by Kermit the Frog, Barney and Dora the Explorer.
To which we must say, huh?
This is the woman who said John Edwards should drop out of the presidential race because his astrological sign didn't favor it.
Never mind he was married, or cheating on a wife dying of cancer.
Hunter is said to have told GQ she liked the article but not the photos, which she posed for at the time, apparently willingly.
According to the article by Lisa DePaulo, "Hello, America, My Name is Rielle Hunter," Edwards' former mistress, 45, reveals that Elizabeth Edwards found out about their affair by seeing a phone number on her husband's cell phone, which she dialed.
(It seems to me this was also the end of Tiger Woods' happy run through the jungle--the tell-tale cell phone trail.)
Rielle answered with a sexy, "Hi, baby," which sealed the deal.
She also discloses in the article that Edwards urged her to get an abortion, and said that falling in love with her could "really f*** up (his) plans to become president." Hunter says they spent the night together the first day they met, February 21, 2006, at New York's Regency Hotel.
Hunter was employed by the Edwards campaign to follow the candidate around as a videographer. She knows the impact of the photos, of the spoken word, of every decision.
And she doesn't want that story, with those photos, out there now?
Please.
Edwards couldn't sink much lower in public estimation, and for many of us, we breathe a collective sigh of relief at having dodged that particular bullet.
All I can say is, apparently, they deserve each other.
On the Web:
Hello, America, My Name is Rielle Hunter - GQ
More Rielle Hunter - GQ
Rielle Hunter Photo Shoot - CNN (video)
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Comments
Rated for Openality.
"johnny"?
his WIFE who is battling cancer, doesn't happen to be dead yet and this piece of crap is calling this woman's husband "Johnny" in an interview?
this woman is not only a skank. but she is a SKANK HO.
the lowest of the low.
It's the same kind of stupidity that would lead someone to make a sex tape with a famous politician and believe that it would never leak to the media.
Noun
(Synonym; quality)
Openality: Having the preferred length, content, and quality indicative of the very best to be found on “Open Salon”
Rated.
Stephanie
R
Saturn has become an excellent apologist for anybody who commits true evil. Weird.
The fact that John couldn't figure out how to decently conduct an affair does disqualify him from holding higher office. By that I mean with someone appropriately discrete and using protection, as well as a modicum of taste.
All I can say is ugh--partly for allowing a magazine like GQ to make Rielle the main circus act rather than "Johnny," who deserves a whole heavenly choir of angel-spit "ughs!"
Hope your back feels better soon, Kathy. Rated.
Edwards and this woman deserve each other. I feel deeply for Elizabeth Edwards, and for their children who very likely might be without a mother and are most certainly without any kind of responsible father.
-r-
Now that's love. I know I would be willing to completely put myself out there (in a magazine even!) for a man who suggested I abort the evidence of our affair. This woman seems so gloriously unself-aware (is that a word?), I would kill to be that clueless.
She probably doesn't like the photos because they're AWFUL. She's not a bad looking woman but the pictures do not do her justice. She looks scraggly in the photos. Like an older, busted up version of Dee from It's Always Sunny.
(I didn't know hooker-posing on a child's bed was the new thing. I'm going to have to call my niece...)
Not such a new ploy, if I may say so.
Imagine if he were the Democratic candidate, won the presidency, and she was the "second lady"?
Time to change the subject. The only way to kill the fame monster is to starve it. At least she did the public a service by exposing Edwards for the reptile he is.
Although the term MILF does come to mind. (Sorry about that.)
It's not their fault it "just happens." Remember it is hard to keep it in your pants if forget to wear any.
I usually look forward to many of your posts butt, I ALWAYS look forward to seeing your picture.
Remember when Barbara interviewed heads of state? This has got to be easier and the ratings are better. Ask her how she feels. Make her cry, Barbara!
There's got to be a target audience that advertisers are trying to reach who would watch this train wreck in progress.
Does anyone know if she was wearing underwear?
The main word that comes to mind is that flavor-of-the-month (but I think pertinent here) diagnosis, "Narcissist." That goes for both of them. She's self-absorbed to the nth degree, and also grandiose in thinking she could help transform the world through Edwards (and that he could do it, which of course stroked his own grandiosity and narcissism).
I neither see her as evil and calculating nor naive and clueless, but as living in her own world in which things look very very different than they do to you or me. So it's not about overlooking things (his wife has cancer, he's running for President) but interpreting those things in a way that's utterly unlike how the vast majority of people would. Ditto for believing things (including that Edwards said to her) that sound ludicrous to us. And I believe that she isn't necessarily gunning to marry him and tap into his wealth and all that. I think her aims in life may be so different that it's not possible to throw conventional judgment on her behavior (gold digger, opportunist, etc).
I guess it comes from living in Calif for decades, but I've seen a lot of women who talk like she does, and they really do have a different take on the world, and operate differently. Not that it's admirable, mind you -- quite the opposite! I find it utterly self-absorbed. But it's not naivete.
It's about an entire world view that is contrary to how most people think -- and that very contrariness is a big part of it. People like Rielle are gratified by feeling they are different and better than the normal person - more "enlightened" to use a shortcut phrase.
Yes... as a photographer I like the shots... as a receiver I would raise hell.. but to what extend as I agreed the snapshooter take my sultry poses..
Would I gaga over these shots ?? Wise up... I´m the one taking them.. not the one going gaga oer them.. so vodznoo ??
She´s a nice chick with a nice body to sell my pix ... I have to make a living !!
To all you drewling hot-doggy types.... go see momma and "get it over with" for the moment....
From the GripeVine .... & Donah..//
After all, it is a well-known fact that Elizabeth's brains got "Johnny" through law school. He is a big Z-E-R-O without her as he will probably soon learn, if he hasn't already. This probably wasn't his first affair either. His luck ran completely out with Hunter, and he deserved it. Everyone knows in all relationships familiarity breeds contempt, and if one or both partners have fallen so far out of love that there is no love to save, then, by all means, split, sign on the dotted line, then go find your Rielle Hunter or whatever dog you wish to shack up with now. Johnny, being a lawyer, should have known this. Guess his "urges" helped him make bad choices!!! You'd think he would have learned from Bill, Newt, and tons of others who thought they were smarter than that and could hide it better. Now, pretty boy "Johnny" is a hated man and will probably never get work in this state again.
My hope is that when Elizabeth dries the last tear, and the pain and anger of this mess subsides, she and her children find happiness beyond her wildest dreams. There's a great big wide wonderful world out there to discover, and since her time may be limited, I pray she remains calm and gets past the hurt soon. Johnny and Rielle aren't worth the stress.
Once you are past 16, your obligation is to find out and think BEFORE you act, not "feel" (sorry, hurt, exposed, exploited, fill in the blank) afterwards.
She just HAD to lock eyes with him and lay a cheap pickup line on him and go to his room and have sex with him that night, and then start sneaking around on a woman dying with cancer and derail his presidential campaign and get pregnant and lie about that and go along with some other guy lying about being the father and make a sex tape and deny that too and take misappropriated funds and pose half naked with Dora the Explorer!
Because it was written in the stars and it was all a part of living a "life of truth"! She just HAD to!
But you can't expect spiritual plebes like the rest of us to understand something so pure and good and true.