Posted on 08/14/2008 8:08:55 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
An anguished Elizabeth Edwards decided to stay with her cheating husband because she is dying and worried about their two young children, her closest friend says.
"It's just tragic. That's all I can say about it," Hargrave McElroy, Elizabeth's best friend, told the Daily News.
In a longer interview with People magazine, McElroy, a North Carolina teacher, said John Edwards didn't confess his adultery with his flaky videographer, Rielle Hunter, until after he officially announced his presidential run in December 2006.
Then Elizabeth had a terrible choice to make.
"There was anguish - excruciating anguish - for her in dealing with this....She couldn't say, 'Well, maybe we'll work through this for years, or maybe we should separate for two years,'" McElroy told the magazine. "[Cancer] forced her to choose whether to move forward."
According to new reports in the National Enquirer, Edwards didn't confess until after an unwitting campaign staffer walked in on him with Hunter and word got back to his wife, who confronted him.
By staying by his side in life and on the stump, Elizabeth Edwards hoped to ensure that her youngest children, 10-year-old Emma Claire and 8-year-old Jack, still have an untarnished father when she's gone, friends and relatives said. That is no longer possible - not after Enquirer reporters confronted him and forced his televised confession last Friday.
"It's so painful for her to see the father of her children become a pariah," McElroy mourned.
Worse, reports keep emerging that Edwards continues to lie and the affair never ended. "They broke up a bunch of times, especially when Elizabeth was rediagnosed [with cancer]," a friend of Hunter's, Texas publicist Pigeon O'Brien, told People. "But they got back together."
The National Enquirer said Edwards, 55, and Hunter, 44, restarted the affair in 2007 and were still involved when Hunter got pregnant that May. She now has a 5-month-old daughter whose paternity is a mystery.
The weekly also quoted sources close to Hunter saying that Edwards and his mistress choreographed their public tango over a DNA test: he offered to take one last week, she declined to allow it.
"They worked that out together in advance," a source described only as "an insider" told the Enquirer. "She's still protecting John because she loves him and thinks they may eventually have a future together."
Hunter's sister Roxanne Andrews, who says she spoke to her sister recently, told "Entertainment Tonight" the affair has not ended, that Hunter and Edwards are in touch and that Hunter remains deeply in love with Edwards.
The Enquirer also alleged that Fred Baron, a Texas lawyer who ran finances for the Edwards campaign, was still "secretly funneling $15,000 a month" to Hunter. The weekly also said Baron was paying off Andrew Young, the married campaign staffer who claimed paternity of the baby, to the tune of $20,000 a month.
Baron did not respond to the new allegations, but he told Texas Lawyer magazine that he only learned of Edwards' affair three weeks ago, when the former senator came clean to him and some other friends.
He said he was in the dark when he paid big bucks to relocate her and Young from North Carolina to California in January.
"Do I feel that he betrayed me? I don't like the word 'betrayal,'" he said. "I think he was in denial himself. He did a very, very stupid, bad thing."
Until she fled last week, reportedly on a private jet to an overseas hideout, Hunter was staying in the Santa Barbara home of Microsoft millionaire Jon Kechejian, which rents for $9,000 a month, according to neighbor Susan Green.
"I only met [Hunter] once. She was standing in front of the house with the baby, and I asked 'Are you renting?' And she said yes. And I asked if it was for the whole six months, and she said 'Oh I wish I could.'"
Baron says he took care of all the expenses himself without telling Edwards. "I never discussed it with John. He was on the campaign trail in Iowa at the time," Baron said.
I would have made other arrangements.
Your cheatin’ heart will make you weep
You’ll cry and cry and try to sleep
But sleep won’t come the whole night through
Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you
When tears come down like falling rain
You’ll toss around and call my name
You’ll walk the floor the way
I do your cheatin’ heart will tell on you
When tears come down...
Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you
I’ll never understand why people get married nowadays.
He was boinking this Camille Parker Bowles look alike up thru 3 weeks ago.
Doesn't she have relatives who can fill the bill?
Goes to show money isn't everything...(considering, of course, how he got it in the first place)
Now he will prolly loose a good chunk of it, his reputation, his ability to make money, that beautiful new home etc.
Is this bad karma, 'just desserts' or simply a man who think's his sins are invisible?
Given Lizzie’s strong desire for pursuit of political power through her sissified husband, I have significant doubts about the story about staying married fer duh chiddrens.
DRats favorite line............ for the children !
Nobody should judge what Elizabeth did.. The woman is dying...she had so many things to think about. Can you imagine this poor woman has to know now that this is the crazy woman will probably be her children’s stepmother? Edwards is FINISHED...DONE....COOKED in public life.
Infidelity ruins everyone in the long run. As an adult child whose father was caught at that game, I know how much it hurts. I feel for these Edwards children.
She could have become an independent woman and assigned guardianship of her infant children to her eldest daughter or her sister.
At the time she had the upper hand and could have forced the lyin’ cheatin’ dog to sign off on the document.
There is no way he would have cut off her financial support so again she had the upper hand and the moral high ground.
WHAT? you think this means the courts would take away his children? If that was the criteria for custody, half the children in tihs world would be in government run houses.
Years ago a friend of mine caught her (rich) husband cheating and just let it go on, when ask why she said I have the check book????
“I think he was in denial himself.”
What a stupid excuse for an arrogant, cheating, lying...you know what!
Hate to break it to them, but there’s no such choreographing that can hide the illegal campaign cash from the IRS, the FBI or U.S. Atty unless it’s been pre-determined to let Edwards, Baron and Young get away with it.
Stay tuned - The National Enquirer is publishing quite an eye-opener about the money trail in next week’s issue.
I agree - she is complicit in his lies while trying to foist him off on us as President. I have no sympathy for her for that reason alone. She chose the low road by deceiving the public and duping people into sending money to his campaign when he was no longer a viable candidate. The Dems were “took” by two of their own!!
What a scumbag liar...
I told my mother, “Look, you can take this man for everything he’s worth, and live in luxury the rest of your life...get a face lift, travel the world, find a man who won’t be unfaithful.... .”
This stuff turns the nicest of us into mean, undesirable scum. That Mrs. Edwards has risen above it says so much for HER character.
What!...No follow-ups from DBM's crack investigative reporters. /sarcasm...no pun intended
I think she wanted to be First Lady.
Ah yes, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. Ain’t it funny how ditzy, skanky 40 year old retreads like this always seem to find that magical love affair with a multi-millionaire? Strange it wasn’t the plummer she fell for, huh!
You don’t have to be poor to be white trash....
Isn’t EE an attorney too? If so, that would explain everything and the explanation is NOT “for the children.”
Your thoughts and mine run along the same lines as the article written by Lis Smith, that I read in this morning’s paper. She drank the Kool-Aid to push her husband’s path to the presidency. She knew damn well what he was doing!!
Enquiring minds want to know.
Yes, she practiced bankruptcy law.
You know, it is not an easy choice. I do feel a lot of empathy for Mrs. Edwards. My husband of 20 years stepped out of our marriage and wanted a divorce. I cannot begin to describe the anguish and himiliation I felt. We only had one child at home and he was 17 a senior in HS.
Even when I found out, I begged my husband to reconsider his choice. I could not believe I humiliated myself like that. We went through so much together for what we had and he was throwing it all away. Starting all over at 48 years old and a woman to boot. It has taken a long time to recover from that.
Now, three years later, I am STRONG!!
Hang in there Mrs. Edwards, I am praying for you and your children.
While I feel so sorry for his wife and her cancer condition, he could care less about her and only cares about his needs.
He is a real POS.
Given that she is essentially living on borrowed time, she has no real hope of achieving any political power through anyone. Your analysis, only in my own personal opinion, suffers for not adequately factoring that into the equation.
The fact that she stayed is immaterial, in a political sense. The fact that she participated in the coverup is not.
I wish her and her family all the best, and I hope she beats her cancer, against whatever odds she is facing.
But, I want her and her silky-maned husband off of the national political stage.
Gee, I think it is her choice as to how she handles her marriage, her children’s lives and how she decides to live out her days.
Baron has been shelling out at least $24,000/month (Rielle's $9K monthly rent + $15K stipend) since January, and now he is pissed.
Delicious!
“Given that she is essentially living on borrowed time, she has no real hope of achieving any political power through anyone. Your analysis, only in my own personal opinion, suffers for not adequately factoring that into the equation.”
I did consider the purposeful family lie that was the foundation of the Edwards 2008 campaign for the presidency, in the collusion that’s apparent between John and Elizabeth Edwards to foist this abject political dishonesty on the public. Was that fur duh chiddrens too?
“I agree - she is complicit in his lies while trying to foist him off on us as President. I have no sympathy for her for that reason alone. She chose the low road by deceiving the public and duping people into sending money to his campaign when he was no longer a viable candidate. The Dems were “took” by two of their own!!”
I do have sympathy for her IF she is really in a terminal stage of cancer. On the other hand, with all the lies from them I now wonder if she REALLY IS in a terminal stage. I know several women who have recovered fully from breast cancer, but do realize that some women do not due to the type of cancer. I hope Elizabeth isn’t terminal and that she gets a good attorney and leaves Edwards nice and poor!
Good for you. Sorry you had to suffer. I also feel empathy for EE. Men like John Edwards, John McCain, and John Kerry have caused enormous pain for their families. Many of their wives actions can be understood as saving face or trying to cope with the pain and humiliation. I can think of two supermodels who had gone through the same thing.
Elizabeth’s two youngest children are the result of donor egg/in-vitro fertilization. She had to prep her body via hormone injections and then John’s sperm was combined with a donor egg. The resulting embryo’s were implanted into her uterus. Although she carried the children to term, she is not their biological mother. That is why they don’t resemble Liz or her older biological daughter at all.
Good catch, I hadn't realized it but you're right.
Some of you male types please explain this to me: what is the charm of women like this? I mean, why go with a homely skank when you are rich and could get an attractive one? What do they have? I refuse to believe that there are sexual tricks skeggy-looking women have that pretty or normal ones don't know.
maybe she could help John with one.
I feel for Elizabeth, BUT, if memory serves me correctly, she took on quite an attack dog role during the campaign didn’t she?
Wasn’t she pretty aggressive and doing some of her husband’s dirty work so he wouldn’t have to?
She was definitely complicit in attempting to put yet another womanizing, Democrat fraud into the White House.
One of the worse parts of all of this is that she is so desparately ill. It’s just so sad.
Doesn't she have relatives who can fill the bill?
They won't be the first children raised by a lying, philandering, weak willed jerk. One can only hope for the best.
Judge away...says more about you than about her.
Oh, come on! She tried to make this Tiger Beat, store mannequin the President of the United States! Every time she said a word of support for him, she was lying to America. Cancer doesn’t make you want to do unending harm to your country.
They stick with them out of hope - hope that it’ll get better, hope that things will change, out of wanting their children to have their father and out of not believing in divorce and remarriage; some for the reason of having been unfortunate enough to have contracted an incurable illness early in life that has rendered them unable to “get off their duffs and get and hold a decent job”. That’s true more of women who haven’t had the educational advantages that some have had, or who didn’t grow up in the feminist generation.
If Elizabeth Edwards were well, her choices might be more varied. As it is, she is facing a deplorable situation. A snot-nosed, spoiled brat of a husband who thinks his “conquest” is HOT and that “overweight” Elizabeth is not worthy of his greatness and wonderfulness and who continues to stress her with his ambitions and nastiness, and worst of all the specter of this skank possibly raising her children would strain the life out of anyone.
It’s easy to say what one would do in a situation. - I think if she has close relatives she could trust in the worst case scenario, she would do well to divorce him, take him to the cleaners and diminish what the skank can get her hands on, get custody of the children, set up a trust for her children, get out from under Johnny’s political ambition garbage, hire all the help she needs to take care of practical needs, rest and relax, realize that no one is going to vote for John for dog catcher in the future, rest and relax and leave those two lovebirds to wallow in their own filth until they puke.
It’s so easy to get caught up in “image” and get into living a lie before a person realizes it.
I am amazed that a lawyer who lives with this lawyer couldn’t see her husband’s ethics problem. God protect her children.
“Baron has been shelling out at least $24,000/month”
When Rielle’s money dries up and it will the stuff will hit the fan.
Baron’s wife should divorce him and so should Edward’s wife. Then these two weird attornies can move in together and become, ya you guessed it, THE ODD COUPLE!
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