Their troubled relationship is officially over. Rielle Hunter revealed on Tuesday that she is no longer seeing John Edwards.
Hunter appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America and revealed to host George Stephanopoulos that she and the former presidential candidate have ended their relationship. The couple’s split was revealed as details from Hunter’s memoir slowly become public, the tome rife with gossip-worthy tidbits, like how Hunter refers to Edwards’ first wife Elizabeth as a “witch on wheels.”
Interestingly, Edwards himself was just acquitted last month of charges that he used campaign money to hide the nature of his relationship with Hunter from the public eye. Since the affair became public, the couple has dealt with much media scrutiny and public interest, specifically after the birth of their daughter in 2008. Many credit 4-year-old Quinn’s birth as the catalyst that ended Edwards’ presidential ambitions, reports NY Daily .
“We are a family,” Hunter reassured Stephanopoulos, “but as of the end of last week John Edwards and I are no longer a couple. Not at all.” Stephanopoulos asked Hunter if she was still in love with Edwards, and she affirmed that she did. When asked if Edwards still loved Hunter, she replied, “You have to ask him. I think he does. I mean I feel that he does.”
Hunter also admitted the intense media attention the affair has gotten the couple, and how that has affected their relationship, notes ABC . “For me, for my part in it, it’s because I’m no longer interested in hiding, hiding our relationship, not living out,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve had a lot of media scrutiny. It’s complicated and it’s hard. It wears you down after a while.”
Hunter kept details to herself, choosing not to reveal who made the break. “That’s private. We decided together to end it. It’s hard. It’s painful,” she said.
When asked if she would do it all again, Hunter incredulously replied, “Would I do that again? No way. Absolutely not,” but backpedaled quickly so as to not characterize her relationship with Edwards as a mistake. “I know many things many things in the relationship were a mistake but I don’t regret loving him,” she said.
Hunter discusses intimate details of her torrid love affair with Edwards in her memoir, What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter and Me , in an effort to set the record straight regarding the controversial couple. Reports Fox , it will be released Tuesday through BenBella Books.