Rielle Hunter Tells All About John Edwards Affair

Former presidential candidate John Edwards' infamous mistress -- Rielle Hunter -- has finally ended her years of silence about their affair and is coming clean. In an exclusive interview with GQ magazine, Hunter tells of how she and Edwards slept together on the very same night they met and how Edwards predicted the affair would cause him to leave politics earlier than he had planned.

When Hunter first met the former North Carolina senator, her first words to him were "You're so hot." After their first romp at Manhattan's Regency hotel in February 2006, Edwards told Hunter:

"Falling in love with you could really f- - - up my plans for becoming president."

Hunter, 45, revealed that she met Edwards on the corner of 61st Street and Park Avenue in February 2006, and did not pick him up at a bar like previous reports have suggested. She said that she had spotted him earlier in the lounge of The Regency hotel, but they did not speak.

Hunter said:

"I did not know who he was. 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."

She said that after she learned who he was, she gave her business card to one of his aides. Edwards, 56, later looked for her at the lounge and was disappointed when he could not find her.

She says:

"So when he walked around the corner [again] and saw me standing there, he lit up like a Christmas tree. 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 that later that evening, Edwards invited her up to his hotel room. She says she told her friends that she wouldn't sleep with him, and then added:

"And so I went over to his room, and I walked in. And I. Was. Terrified. Because I had never experienced anything like what was flowing between us."

"Come closer. I won't bite you," Edwards beckoned.

"There was so much attraction and so much -- I want to say love. And, um, I eventually walked over to his side of the room. He was pretty relentless. And that's all I'm gonna say on that."

Over the course of the next four days, Hunter said that they talked on the phone every night for four hours, and that by then, she was "head over heels in love." To keep their affair secret, Hunter purchased a second cellphone for Edwards to use for calling her, which was identical to the one he already had. Elizabeth Edwards, 60, reportedly discovered their affair after she found the second phone and dialed the last number called.

Rielle said:

"I answered the phone and said, 'Hey, baby,' And, click. And then [Elizabeth] confronted him and confronted him, and he finally confessed."

Hunter also says that she learned that she was pregnant with Edwards child in July 2007, and that he also knew, even before he and Elizabeth renewed their vows. Hunter says that he said he would support her if she kept the baby, but that she thought he was hoping she would abort it.

She said:

"He wasn't happy about the timing. Which is understandable. He was married and running for president."

Even though Edwards lied to his wife and the country, Hunter insists that he would not like to her:

"He's not afraid of me." He'll tell me anything and everything. He has no fear that I'm going to abuse him."

But Hunter says that Elizabeth was routinely abusive to her husband:

"I believe what happened in his marriage is, he could not go to his wife and say, 'We have an issue.' Because he would be pummeled. Most of his mistakes or errors in judgment were because of his fear of the wrath of Elizabeth . . . And you know, the wrath of Elizabeth is a mighty wrath."

Hunter also says that she did not pursue Edwards, rather it was the other way around. She says that when Edwards denied fathering her baby and Andrew Young, his aide, instead claimed it was his, she was heartbroken but understood. She said:

"Because he had been living a life that was now exposed. A hidden life, when it is exposed, is a traumatic event for the person going through it. And they're not in their right mind."

She says that Young was willing to take the fall because he was in love with Edwards, and added that she received financial assistance through young, but denies it was "hush money.".

Hunter said that despite everything, her love for John is "unconditional" and she hopes they'll be together forever one day:

"We love each other very much. And that hasn't changed, and I believe that will be till death do us part. The love doesn't go away."