How Quiet Is Rielle Hunter?
I remember hearing about Rielle Hunter’s pregnancy through the drunken, gossipy grapevine of politicos on Super Tuesday of 2008. Pollsters and pundits were huddled down in drab enclaves at Manchester, NH drinking holes to avoid the bitter cold. Dennis Kucinich had just finished some pub beef something-or-other in the booth next to me. Right then, a fiery HuffPo blogger slid into the seat across from mine, and spilled: “John Edwards knocked some woman up. She’s having the baby and they have a cover-up story. No one in the press is saying anything because of Elizabeth’s cancer, but we all know.” He swooped back out.
There had been some tabloid speculation about Hunter before this, but few Americans knew or investigated. After hearing about the lovechild, I naturally watched with fascination as the saga eventually panned out. On February 27, Hunter had the baby. In July, the National Enquirer broke a story about Edwards visiting his new daughter at the Beverly Hilton (see above photo). After many public denials, Edwards finally admitted to paternity of Hunter’s child in August 2008. Since then, almost everyone involved has said their piece, and it only gets more interesting.
Very little, however, was said by Hunter while this was all going down, which is why Newsweek recently penned a story praising the “quiet dignity” of the mistress of a terminally ill woman’s politician husband.
GQ nabbed her first official words on the matter, a transcribed Q&A that weighs in at nearly 10,000 words (that’s what happens when you hold it in for so long!). Within the interview, she candidly addresses the flaws in others’ accounts, professes her love for Edwards, and talks timeline. In an effort to save you time reading, I’ve boiled her tale down to the important stuff:
1. Hunter calls Edwards “Johnny,” which is apparently the name on his birth certificate.
2. Hunter firmly believes that Mr. Pantsonfire never lies to her.
3. Elizabeth Edwards is scary as shit. She’ll chop your motherfucking dick off.
4. Hunter did not recognize “Johnny” as the famous, powerful John Edwards when she first met his gaze from across a hotel lobby.
5. Everybody else is lying! Except “Johnny,” who apparently only lies to everyone else.
6. Hunter was never given any hush money.
7. Okay, well, Hunter did receive money, in various forms–but considered that to be a normal, kosher, understandable part of people taking care of her and “Johnny.”
8. Hunter believes her webisodes about the real John Edwards are “pretty good.”
9. Edwards’ discovery that his mistress was pregnant with a girl? “He thought that was very cool.”
10. Hunter does “not fit into a box,” but “there’s no crazy” about her.
11. Edwards was supportive of her spilling the beans to GQ.
12. Andrew Young sucks.
13. Hunter and Edwards have a profound, lighthearted, honest connection.
14. Edwards isn’t really the dishonest, plastic, geeky politician guy we think he is. Rather, he’s “HOT.”
15. Rielle Hunter is only a mistress by circumstance.
and
11. She thought the article’s accompanying photo spread, for which she posed seductively on her lovechild’s bed with nothing but a dress shirt and string of pearls on—uh, WHAT?, were surprisingly “repulsive.”
Hunh. Kinda liked her better quiet.
[via HuffPo]
[Newsweek: The Quiet Dignity of Rielle Hunter]
[GQ: Hello, America, My Name Is Rielle Hunter]
Source
Thanks, Ken! 
Filed under: Andrew Young, Bad ideas, Creepy Photos, Elizabeth Edwards, Eww, GQ, HuffPo, John Edwards, Lovechild, MILF? ICK!, Mistresses, Oy, People With No Shame, Politicians, Rielle Hunter, Scandal, Shameful Pictures, Shameless Photo Ops, Speaking Up, Super Tuesday, Terminal Illness
The interview was rather vomititious, wasn’t it?
On a more shallow note, I’m upset that I can’t un-see the game of peekaboo her underpants are playing. And frankly, I’m shocked that she thought that pantsless, suggestive photos of her in a non-artistic spread would be anything BUT repulsive…”But I’m wearing pearls! Of COURSE it’ll be classy!”
Being from North Carolina, I’ve met both John and Elizabeth Edwards (at separate events, which now makes a lot of sense). John is just as smarmy and uninteresting as you might think and Elizabeth isn’t scary if you’re not screwing her husband.
I was far more impressed by Elizabeth than by John. She’s a real charmer. I’m not surprised the media was willing to sit on the story in order to give her a little peace in recovery.
indeed, @alperryman and @stepaside. Hunter needs both a muzzle and a pair of pants.