John Edwards Admits Affair
Updated: Former senator and 2004 vice-presidential candidate John Edwards has reportedly admitted an extramarital affair about which he had previously lied.
The personal injury lawyer admitted that he had an affair with novice filmmaker Rielle Hunter, 44, who worked on Edwards’ campaign before he announced his candidacy for president of the United States in 2006. But Edwards says he didn’t love her and denies fathering her child, ABC News reports. Friends of Hunter say he met her at a bar in 2006. Subsequently, his campaign paid her $114,000 to produce “webisodes” about his day-to-day activities during the race for the presidency.
The personal injury lawyer reportedly made the admissions in an interview with Bob Woodruff of the ABC News Nightline show that is to be broadcast tonight.
Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and other family members became aware of the affair in 2006, writes the London Times. It reportedly began that year after Hunter was hired to make the webisodes about Edwards’ soon-to-be-announced presidential campaign.
In October, when the National Enquirer reported about the Edwards-Hunter affair, he denied it: “The story is false, it’s completely untrue, it’s ridiculous,” he told reporters at the time, ABC notes in its website article today.
“He repeated his denials just two weeks ago,” the network writes.
It appears that Edwards may still be in touch with Hunter:
Reports the Times: “Speculation was reignited last month by another Enquirer story, which claimed that an undercover reporting team confronted Mr. Edwards at 2:40 a.m. on July 20 in a Los Angeles hotel. It alleged that he had been visiting Ms. Hunter and her child and that she was staying at the hotel under an assumed name. Mr. Edwards had run down a corridor and barricaded himself in a men’s lavatory, it said.”
Reports ABC: “Edwards today admitted the National Enquirer was correct when it reported he had visited Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month. The former Senator said his wife had not known about the meeting.”
Additional coverage:
Associated Press: “Dates in the Edwards’ extramarital affair”
New York Times: “Statements from John and Elizabeth Edwards”
The Caucas (New York Times): “Edwards Admits to Extramarital Affair”
Updated at 8:15 p.m., central time, to include Associated Press and New York Times coverage.
