What Really Happened Read online

  What

  Really

  Happened

  John Edwards,

  Our Daughter, and Me

  Rielle Hunter

  BENBELLA BOOKS, INC.

  DALLAS, TEXAS

  Copyright © 2012 by Rielle Hunter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  BenBella Books, Inc.

  10300 N. Central Expressway

  Suite #400

  Dallas, TX 75231

  www.benbellabooks.com

  Send feedback to [email protected]

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title.

  ISBN 978193756427

  Editing by Erin Kelley

  Copyediting by Lisa Miller

  Proofreading by James Fraleigh

  Cover design by Kit Sweeney

  Text design and composition by John Reinhardt Book Design

  E-book format by Erica Jennings/Jennings Design

  Printed by Berryville Graphics

  Distributed by Perseus Distribution

  perseusdistribution.com

  To place orders through Perseus Distribution:

  Tel: 800-343-4499

  Fax: 800-351-5073

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Significant discounts for bulk sales are available.

  Please contact Glenn Yeffeth at [email protected] or (214) 750-3628.

  For

  Frances Quinn

  I love you most.

  Contents

  Introduction

  ONE:Sixty-First and Park

  TWO:Becoming a Mistress

  THREE:Falling in Love

  FOUR:Working Girl

  FIVE:And Away We Go

  SIX:The Real Deal

  SEVEN:The Leaves Are Changing

  EIGHT:The End of the Year

  NINE:One Night Only

  TEN:On and On

  ELEVEN:The Circle of Life

  TWELVE:Odd Timing

  THIRTEEN:Yes, I Am

  FOURTEEN:Knock, Knock

  FIFTEEN:“She Even Denied She Was Rielle Hunter!”

  SIXTEEN:Band on the Run

  SEVENTEEN:The End of Just Me

  EIGHTEEN:Changing Diapers, Changing Everything

  NINETEEN:The End of My Mistress Stint

  TWENTY:She Is Not My Child

  TWENTY-ONE:Goodbye, Santa Barbara

  TWENTY-TWO:Jersey Girls

  TWENTY-THREE:Father of the Year

  TWENTY-FOUR:The Last Chapter Before the Verdict

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.”

  —Blaise Pascal

  Christmas and New Year’s Holiday, 2011. We are on Johnny’s basketball court—Quinn’s favorite indoor playground.

  Introduction

  “Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.”

  —Erica Jong

  A lot has been said about me, about John Edwards, and about our relationship. You may feel like you know the true story. You may even feel like you know me. But the truth is, you don’t.

  There have been many lies told, many judgments made. Even Erica Jong, who from the quote above would seem to know better, said, “When you think of John Edwards being taken in by someone like Rielle Hunter, you think, what a child he must be, how infantile he must be!”

  Apparently everyone is ready to judge me, to judge Johnny, and to judge our relationship. That’s okay. This book isn’t about changing anyone’s mind. It’s simply about telling the full truth, which, up until now, no one has heard.

  At its heart, this is a love story. It’s about two people who fell in love, made terrible sacrifices for that love, and did terrible things in defense of that love. I have regrets about some of the things we did—of course I do. But I don’t regret loving Johnny and I certainly don’t regret the birth of our amazing daughter, Quinn.

  I originally thought that I could get through this whole ordeal without needing to write a book. But in the summer of 2010, I finally grasped the full depth of the story and my role in it and I changed my mind.

  I have endured a lot—a great deal of embarrassment, pain, and sadness beyond measure. The disrespect to my life and my privacy are still somewhat astonishing to me. This has not been an easy road to walk, but I’m not writing this book to garner sympathy.

  I am writing this book because the truths of this story are not yet in the public domain. In reality, there are facts that even I didn’t become aware of until 2011. I’m hoping that by sharing the truth and my experiences, this book will shed some light on the untold side of the story.

  Many people invested their hearts, their time, and their energy into the image of John and Elizabeth Edwards. While this image wasn’t exactly true, I did play a role in destroying this myth and many supporters ended up feeling hurt, betrayed, and disillusioned. I feel that I owe them the full story.

  I also believe that I have a responsibility to Johnny and his entire family to offer the truth.

  In addition to all of those reasons, I have a stronger, more personal force driving me to write this book. Her name is Frances Quinn. I want my sweet girl to have one entirely truthful public account of how she came into the world. After all, this is her history too.

  I am not writing this book as a defense, but everything in it I would repeat under oath.

  It is the truth.

  Our daughter deserves it.

  ONE

  Sixty-First and Park

  “We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

  —Joseph Campbell

  I don’t like to think of myself as a stupid person but I have done a lot of things in my life that were just plain stupid. Snorting cocaine is stupid. Snorting cocaine for just under a decade, desperately attempting to recreate the euphoric high from the first line ever snorted, is so far beyond stupid it may even qualify as criminal. Fortunately, I recognized this in my twenties and stopped. I then began to devote a huge amount of my time and energy to spiritual growth. I know that sounds weird to most people and I’m not one of those gullible New Age–types who believes everything any swami says, but I have always been very attracted to the idea of happiness, self-improvement, and change, which in my youth seemed to be somewhat elusive. For many years I studied astrology, went to spiritual retreats, practiced transcendental meditation and much more. Even as I was drawn to these practices, I also was somewhat skeptical. If there were a joke to be found, I would find it. And yes, while there is a lot of silliness out there, I do sincerely believe there are also a lot of positive things to be learned.

  On May 4th, 2004, it suddenly occurred to me that what I had been looking for all those years couldn’t come from someone or something else. I realized that I was the source of my own happiness. It was kind of like, if in forty years of life, you had never once seen your own reflection and then one day you just simply looked in the mirror. The realization was so simple yet so weird. I think of that day as the day I woke up and started living, because there was a fundamental shift that happened in my mind and my perspective changed. Ov
ernight, I no longer had any ongoing internal wars. I still had negative emotional reactions, but instead of hanging on to those feelings, I moved to acceptance seamlessly. It took me about two years to adapt to this new way of operating and during that time, I felt extremely high, quite similar to a high from drugs but much better. Actually way better.

  Johnny and I took Quinn to school together the day after her fourth birthday. Afterward, we were standing in the kitchen while I made coffee for myself (he doesn’t drink coffee). I asked him, “What attracted you to me that first night?” He responded, “Your lightness. When you walked into the room there was a lightness about you.”

  When this “lightness” happened I (stupidly) assumed that I would do what countless others have done when “waking up” had happened to them—I would teach. I had emerged from more than a decade of intense spiritual study as a person who was committed to being as honest and authentic as I can be with myself and to helping others to the same. I also had a knack for being able to help people see where they were stuck, and what was keeping them from being happy. I’d been an actress, a producer, a filmmaker, and a writer. With my newfound “lightness” (accompanied with a few people asking me for guidance), teaching seemed the most logical thing for me to do next.

  So on February 21st, 2006, I was in the process of becoming a spiritual teacher, or to put it in more traditional terms, a life coach.

  If I were writing this as a screenplay, here is the part where GOD (played by LENNY KRAVITZ or if Lenny is too busy touring, BONO) would ERUPT into laughter.

  I mean, really, what a joke.

  I was living in South Orange, New Jersey, with my best friend, Mimi Godfrey Hockman, and her two sons (and my godsons). It was late afternoon and I was getting ready to head into New York City. I remember feeling very happy. Ever since my new outlook on life had happened, my emotional state rarely varied from one of satisfaction. No matter what the circumstances were on the outside, life was just fun.

  By early evening I had finished a downtown meeting with a guy from Plum TV about a TV show that never happened, and Mimi had finished getting her hair done, so we met up for dinner. As we approached Park Avenue, Mimi suggested that we stop for a drink at the Loews Regency Hotel.

  I liked that idea. I had never been inside the Regency. More importantly, Mimi was in love and wanted to revisit the places that she and her boyfriend had been visiting in the city.

  We walked into The Library, the Regency’s street-level bar/restaurant. A waiter escorted us to a table. I looked around the room. Diagonally from me on a couch were two men sitting side by side; two more men in chairs flanked the couch. One of the guys on the couch was attractive, wearing all dark Barneys New York type of attire: leather coat, turtleneck, and jeans. He smiled at me; I smiled back. I guessed that he was in the music industry. Directly behind Mimi sat three men who appeared to be having a business meeting. The one closest to Mimi was the most attractive of the three, looking very Southern and conservative but still casual in blue jeans, a blue blazer, and no tie.

  After my initial scan of the room, I drank some wine. Then my cell phone rang; it was my friend, Glory Crampton. I asked her to join us, given we were in her neighborhood. She told me she wasn’t dressed for the Regency; I told her I wasn’t either. (I had on jeans and a black cashmere turtleneck.) She said she would be there soon.

  I spotted a guy in a blue blazer sitting directly behind Mimi. I pointed him out to her and said, “He looks like someone who went to University of Virginia or someone that I showed horses with.” He was very familiar to me, as if I had known him a long time ago in the South.

  She turned briefly to glance at him and said, “You know who that is? John Edwards.”

  I said, “No, John Edwards is a geek. That guy’s got it going on.”

  “It is. I recognize the accent.”

  I still didn’t believe her.

  We spotted an empty table and headed there since Glory would soon be joining us. It also happened to be the precise spot where Mimi and her man sat the previous week.

  Seated at our new table, I was now directly facing the alleged John Edwards. He looked directly at me, not smiling. I returned his gaze, also not smiling. He rested his face in his hands and continued to glance at me during the rest of his meeting. This was weird. I knew this man. There was a strong sense of familiarity that I couldn’t shake. I was intrigued because there was something so different and so very interesting about this man. This looking back and forth at each other went on for a while, and then he and the younger gentlemen got up and left.

  That surprised me. I would have thought that he would have walked directly over to me and asked, “Who are you? And where do I know you from? Because I know you.”

  Mimi said, “That was definitely John Edwards.”

  I said, “No way. John Edwards the politician is disconnected and as deep as a puddle. That man has depth and awareness.”

  The man they had been sitting with remained at their table. Mimi got up, walked over to him, and asked if he had been sitting with John Edwards. The man said he had.

  “It was him, I told you,” she said to me from John Edwards’s table.

  Mimi sat down with the man and I joined them. We chatted briefly. He introduced himself as a lawyer and campaign donor named Tony; if he told me his last name, it didn’t stick.

  “I can’t believe that was John Edwards. He is so hot.” I didn’t say this in the voice of an adoring fan, but more like I was surprised to find that it was true.

  Tony said, “You should have come over and told him that. He would have loved to hear that.”

  After some pleasant small talk that included Mimi expressing a strong desire to work for John Edwards, Tony the lawyer raving about what a great guy John Edwards is, and John Edwards’s uncanny ability to inspire people to want to help him wherever he goes, there was an exchange of business cards between Mimi and Tony. We went back to our table and Glory arrived. Mimi told her that she had just missed John Edwards and expressed again how much she would like to work for him. Glory seemed a bit disappointed that she had missed out. She sighed, “Oh, I would have loved to meet him.”

  I replied, “You will.” I told Glory about the weird connection I felt between the two of us and that I was confident our paths would cross again one day.

  And that was it about John Edwards. The conversation turned to Glory’s upcoming wedding, and we were soon discussing details like flowers and venues.

  A bit later, I got up to use the ladies’ room and on the way I noticed the younger gentleman who had left with John Edwards was back and now sitting with a young woman. I stopped at their table in order to pick up a card for Mimi. His name was Josh Brumberger. He gave me his card and I gave him mine.

  I thought about the card exchange for a split second after it happened. I realized that I, the self-described spiritual guide, and my website (which was unfinished and targeted at a much different demographic) could possibly trigger a little ridicule from a young political staffer but I let the thought go. I had picked up his card for Mimi and didn’t think that he would ever actually look at the site.

  On our way out of the Regency, Glory, a musical theater actress, noticed a poster advertising a friend’s upcoming singing engagement. She asked us to wait for her. So while she popped back in to inquire about her friend, Mimi and I waited outside for her.

  And then out of nowhere it happened: Johnny Reid Edwards came waltzing around the corner and into my life.

  This was the moment. Not a “love at first sight” moment but it was the moment when something electric exploded between us. For me it was a little like one of those slow-motion movie moments; it felt like an eternity and yet it all happened very quickly.

  As he rounded the corner, he saw me and just lit up. I was very surprised to see him so soon, even though I had felt certain our pa
ths would cross again. I could feel his joy when he saw me and I responded to it. Much to my own astonishment, “You are so hot!” came flying out of my mouth. Not a usual greeting for me. And his friend Tony was right—he did like it. His smile got even brighter. He shook my hand so eagerly it felt as though he might jump into my arms as he said, “Thank you.”

  And then another little surprise flew out of my mouth: “I can help you.”

  He replied, “I want your help. I need your help.”

  “Do you email?” I asked.

  He said, “No. I am staying here under the name Matthew Nelson. Call me.”

  “How long are you staying?” I asked.

  He replied, “Until tomorrow morning. Call me. Call me.”

  And then he was gone.

  I had never in my life experienced anything like that meeting. It actually made me feel dizzy. There was a very strong connection between us, I was certain of it.

  Mimi was standing next to me, just inches away during the entire exchange. She claims that she saw two people in their own world when Johnny and I shook hands. Mimi held her hand out the whole time attempting to shake hands with John Edwards, the man she wanted to work for. And not only did he not shake her hand, I found out later that he never even noticed her standing there.

  Johnny also told me later that he had gone to dinner and could not stop thinking about me. He was mad at himself for not walking over to my table to find out who I was. When he was walking back to the hotel, he looked through the window into the Regency and saw that I was no longer sitting at our table. And much to his surprise he felt very disappointed, even sad. So when her rounded the corner and saw me standing, he felt very happy, with no real understanding as to why.

  After the big crazy intro, we girls continued on to dinner and as we sat down, Glory and Mimi kept peppering me with questions and opinions: “What was that?” “Are you going to call?” “You have to call.” “You could really help him.” “You have to call him.”