She Speaks!

Rielle Hunter: I Still Love John

Mistress breaks her silence with GQ.

The day has come at last: Accompanied by sexy, pantsless photos, John Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter, has given a 10,000-word interview to GQ magazine. She says she’s still in love with “Johnny," his marriage was "toxic," and he feared "the wrath of Elizabeth," whom Hunter says "emasculated" him. Hunter also says that she and John slept together the night they met. (On meeting in his hotel room, she says, “I. Was. Terrified… You know, it was just this, this magnetic force field like I had never experienced.”) She denies knowing how much money was being spent on her, or that it came from donors. And though she disputes certain New Agey details that others have alleged—that her business card said “Truth Seeker” or that she dressed like a Dead Head—those anecdotes appear to be right at least in spirit. Hunter blames astrology for Edwards’s loss, and says things like that he hasn’t “fallen from grace, he’s fallen to grace.” Hunter also says Young loved Edwards more than his own wife, and he was the one who volunteered to claim paternity of her baby.