Rielle Hunter GQ Photos and Interview On John Edwards

By: Mary Smith
Staff Writer
Published: Mar 15, 2010

John Edwards mistress, Rielle Hunter, is in the April issue of GQ with photos and a "tell all" interview.

Rielle Hunter and photos are in the April issue of GQ magazine where she breaks here silence about her affair with John Edwards. She says that she still loves the former presidential candidate. Hunter describes him as a relentless lover who slept with her the first night they met in February 2006.

"I did not know who he was," Hunter, 45, told GQ magazine. "The John Edwards I saw in 2004 on TV, I believed to be a disconnected, two-dimensional geek kind of guy. And the man sitting across the room was not that at all."

Hunter handed Edwards one of her business cards the minute when she found out who he was. She said they finally met a few minutes later at the hotel bar. She admits that the mutual attraction was evident.

When Edwards, 56, saw Hunter "standing there, he lit up like a Christmas tree," she told the magazine. "And I thought his reaction when he saw me was just so cute -- I mean, he looked like a little kid at Christmas. And I just uttered to him, 'You're so hot.' And he said, 'Why, thank you!' And he almost jumped into my arms. Literally."

Hunter said Edwards then invited her to his room, admitting she had never experienced anything like what was flowing between them. He also told her that falling in love could ruin his campaign and chance to be president. The new issue of GQ hits stands Tuesday.

The Mistress Behind The Extramarital Affair and Possible Marriage

In October 2007, The National Enquirer began a series of reports alleging an adulterous affair between Edwards and former campaign worker Rielle Hunter. By July 2008, several news media outlets speculated that he fathered a child with Hunter and had visited her and the baby girl at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. However, the story was not widely covered by the press for some time, until, after initially denying the allegations, Edwards admitted the affair.

On January 21, 2010, John Edwards issued a press release to admit that he fathered Hunter's child. He acknowledged that he had been dishonest in denying the entire Enquirer story, but said that the affair ended long before the time of the child's conception. Initially, campaign aide Andrew Young claimed that he was the child's father.

Young has since renounced that statement, and told publishers in a book that Edwards knew all along that he was the child's father. Edwards pleaded with him to accept the false responsibility. Young also said that Edwards once promised Hunter that the two will marry as soon as Elizabeth Edwards died.

John Edwards From Senator To Presidential Candidate

Johnny Edwards as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008. He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina's 1998 Senate election.

Towards the end of his single six-year term, he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election. He eventually became the 2004 Democratic candidate for vice-president, the running mate of presidential nominee Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. In 2010, Edwards publicly revealed that he had an affair with aide Rielle Hunter and fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was fighting metastatic breast cancer.

After Edwards and Kerry lost the election to President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, Edwards began working full-time at the One America Committee, a political action committee he established in 2001. He was also a consultant for Fortress Investment Group LLC.

Elizabeth Edwards Diagnosed With Stage IV Breast Cancer

On November 3, 2004, Elizabeth Edwards revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated via chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and continued to work in politics and her husband's One America Committee. On March 22, 2007, during his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination for the presidency, Edwards and his wife announced that her cancer had returned.

She was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, with newly discovered metastases to the bone and possibly to her lung. They said that the cancer was "no longer curable, but is completely treatable" and that they planned to continue campaigning together with an occasional break when she requires treatment. After John's January 21, 2010, admission that he fathered a child with his mistress, Elizabeth has legally separated from him and intends to file for divorce after a mandatory one-year waiting period.