Rielle Hunter’s new memoir reveals John Edwards had multiple affairs

Everything that I ever wanted to know about Rielle Hunter, I learned from her bats–t insane 2010 GQ interview and her completely delusional Oprah interview. But Rielle still has more “revelations” and “never-before-heard” details on her affair and continuing relationship with John Edwards, the father of her child Quinn (conceived when Edwards was married and running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination). So, Rielle has written a book called What Really Happened – a completely hideous book title, I just have to say. I guess Rielle feels vindicated because of how the John Edwards trial ended up – he was acquitted on one count, and a mistrial was declared on the other five counts, and the NC prosecutor says that they won’t seek to retry Edwards. So… VICTORY. Now Rielle shall bring the crazy. Here are some excerpts from her book:

Rielle spent her 20s doing blow: “I don’t like to think of myself as a stupid person but I have done a lot of things in my life that were just plain stupid. Snorting cocaine is stupid. Snorting cocaine for just under a decade, desperately attempting to recreate the euphoric high from the first line ever snorted is so far beyond stupid it may even qualify as criminal. Fortunately, I recognized this in my twenties and stopped. I then began to devote a huge amount of my time and energy to spiritual growth.”

Meeting John Edwards in 2006: “Seated at our new table, I was now directly facing the alleged John Edwards. He looked directly at me, not smiling. I returned his gaze, also not smiling. He rested his face in his hands and continued to glance at me during the rest of his meeting. This was weird. I knew this man,” Hunter reveals. After Edwards left the bar, Rielle says she ran into him on the street outside the hotel. “As he rounded the corner, he saw me and just lit up. I was very surprised to see him so soon, even though I had felt certain our paths would cross again. I could feel his joy when he saw me and I responded to it. Much to my own astonishment, ‘You are so hot!’ came flying out of my mouth. Not a usual greeting for me…His smile got even brighter.”

The strong connection she felt: During the brief meeting on the streets of New York City, Edwards asked Rielle to call him at his hotel. After offering to help the North Carolina native with his presidential campaign, Edwards was responsive to Hunter’s offer. According to the book, “He replied, ‘I want your help. I need your help.’ ‘Do you email?’ I asked. He said, ‘No. I am staying here under the name Matthew Nelson. Call me.’ ‘How long are you staying?’ I asked. He replied, ‘Until tomorrow morning. Call me. Call me.’ And then he was gone. I had never in my life experienced anything like that meeting. It actually made me dizzy. There was a very strong connection, between us, I was certain of it.”

John told her that he had other affairs: “He told me that he had an entire hidden life that had gone on for decades and that he was currently involved with three different women. One lived in Los Angeles, one in Florida and one in Chicago. Clearly this behavior of his was not going to change overnight.”

Rielle didn’t think Elizabeth was an innocent victim: “We were like a pair of teenagers,” she writes, “completely attached.” She claims that she never felt Elizabeth was an “innocent victim” and describes how John’s wife grew increasingly suspicious as Hunter followed Edwards around on the campaign trail. Edwards, she writes, told her that he and Elizabeth would have marathon fights and that the marriage had been in trouble for many years, “filled with issues that clearly neither Johnny nor Elizabeth wanted to address. They did not want to disclose the truth to themselves, much less the public.”

Johnny isn’t malicious: “I really don’t believe his lying about women was malicious. He used it as a defense to keep real feelings at bay.”

The time she spends with John now: “It’s better and more complicated at the same time,” she says. “I have a deeper understanding of him as a dad and as person who puts his children first. And I believe he has more respect and deeper appreciation of me now.”

[Via Radar and People Magazine]

Interestingly, Rielle shopped this tell-all to all of the major publishers, and she was rejected by all of them. She ended up getting a “small Dallas-based company called Ben Bella” to publish it – my guess is that the publisher has Republican ties, although I have no evidence to back that up, and it’s not like the Republicans even need to promote this story, you know? So, do you think the book will sell? I don’t. It would be different if John Edwards was planning to run for office again, or if he still thought he had a future in the Democratic Party, but surely he’s not that idiotic, right? If he just keeps his head down and raises his children, no one will give a crap what Rielle says about him and their relationship. As for her claim that John admitted to having multiple affairs – well, I believe it. I think he was screwing around on Elizabeth for a LONG time.

Photos courtesy of GQ.