John Edwards, a former United States (US) Senator from North Carolina, US, and a Democratic Party presidential candidate, admitted to an extramarital affair in August 2008.

The affair was initially reported in late-2007 by The National Enquirer, a U.S. supermarket tabloid newspaper, but was given little attention outside the tabloid press and politicalblogosphere.[1][2][3] The Enquirer cited claims, from an anonymous source, that Edwards had engaged in an affair with Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker hired to work for his presidential campaign, with a child produced from the relationship. ABC News reported that Andrew Young, a member of Edwards' campaign team, stated that Edwards asked him to "Get a doctor to fake the DNA results ... and to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this [was] indeed his child."[4]

The allegations, initially published in late-2007, were denied by both Edwards and Hunter. Young claimed paternity of Hunter's daughter, although no father is listed on the child's birth certificate, and Young has subsequently denied it.

In July 2008, several U.S. mainstream media news outlets cited the allegations in relation to Edwards' future political career, as well as in relation to his chances of being selected as arunning mate in Barack Obama's 2008 presidential bid. Then, on August 7, 2008, Edwards admitted to ABC News correspondent, Bob Woodruff, that he did have an extended affair with Hunter, but denied that he was the father of Hunter's baby girl.[5] Hunter's sister claimed that Edwards was the father and publicly asked Edwards to take a paternity test to determine whether the child was his.[6]

On January 21, 2010, Edwards issued a statement admitting that he was the father of the child in question.[7] After the admission from Edwards that he fathered a child with Hunter, Edwards' wife, Elizabeth Edwards, announced a separation from her husband, with an intention to file for divorce.[8][9] On January 25, 2010, the existence of an explicit sex tape, featuring Edwards and Hunter, was publicly reported.[10]

When Edwards first admitted to the affair, he stated that Elizabeth was in remission from breast cancer. However, it became clear that the affair was still ongoing, even after he and his wife made a joint announcement that her cancer had returned and was found to be incurable. Elizabeth Edwards died on December 7, 2010.

Rielle Hunter and the Edwards campaign
Main article: Rielle Hunter
In December 2006, Newsweek reported that Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign to produce a series of webisodes that portrayed behind-the-scenes life on the campaign trail.[11][12][13][14]Hunter had pitched the idea of creating the series to Edwards when she met him at a bar in New York, U.S., where the politician was attending a business meeting.[15] The campaign paid Hunter's production company, Midline Groove, over USD100,000 for the short documentaries[16] that were uploaded to YouTube upon completion. In 2006, Business Week included one of the episodes as a feature in a web video.[17]

The first apparent mention, in print form, of a possible Edwards/Hunter affair, appeared in the New York Post on August 27, 2007. The page-six feature published a blind gossip item[18] that asked: "Which political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he'll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture." The mention in the Post started a tabloid and blogosphere investigation that eventually led to accusations against Hunter and Edwards.[19][20]

In September 2007, Sam Stein, a political reporter for The Huffington Post, reported that the Hunter web documentaries had been removed from the internet and were no longer accessible. Representatives from the Edwards campaign stated that the material could not be used due to campaign finance law.[21][22] Several days later, The Huffington Post reported that the videos had been reposted to YouTube by an anonymous user.[23]

Initial National Enquirer allegations
On October 10, 2007, the Enquirer published an article claiming that Edwards had engaged in an extramarital affair with an unnamed female campaign worker. On the same day, Stein published another article in The Huffington Post that contained additional details about Hunter, including Hunter's name and the web videos that she had produced.[24] The following day, October 11, New York magazine published a piece linking Hunter to the Enquirer allegations.[19]

Both Edwards and Hunter denied the relationship claims. Edwards said the Enquirer story was "made up", further stating, "I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years," referring to his wife Elizabeth, "and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false."[25][26][27] Hunter's attorney issued a denial via Jerome Armstrong, a political blogger and founder of MyDD, stating, "The innuendos and lies that have appeared on the internet (sic) and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous."[28][29] David Perel, the Editor-in-Chief at the Enquirer, did not back down from the paper's allegations, stating, "The original story was 100% accurate."[30]

The Enquirer published a follow-up story that included a photograph of a visibly pregnant Hunter on December 19, 2007. The Enquirer alleged that, according to its anonymous source, Hunter was claiming that Edwards was the father of her child. The article also claimed that Hunter had relocated to a gated community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S., near Andrew Young, a former official with the Edwards campaign, who had claimed paternity of Hunter's child. As with Hunter's initial denial of the affair, Young's paternity claim had been issued to Armstrong and published on MyDD.[31][32]

CBS News journalist, Bob Schieffer, asked about the allegations on Imus in the Morning, stating, "I believe that's a story that we will be avoiding, because it appears to me that there's absolutely nothing to it ... This seems to be just sort of a staple of modern campaigns, that you got through at least one love child, which turns out not to be a love child. And I think we can all do better than this one."[33] Mickey Kaus, a journalist at Slate, speculated that the lack of mainstream coverage was motivated by a desire not to harm Elizabeth Edwards, who was fightingcancer at the time. Kaus also considered the possibility of news organizations taking a "wait-and-see" attitude, pending the results of the Iowa caucuses.[34]

Hotel encounter with reporters

 

The Beverly Hilton Hotel, where Edwards encountered the Enquirerreporters

According to Perel, the Enquirer had received information stating that Edwards would be visiting Hunter and her child at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., on the evening of July 21, 2008, and the paper dispatched several reporters to the hotel. The team of Enquirer reporters encountered Edwards on the hotel premises sometime after 2 a.m. on the morning of July 22. According to Perel, Edwards, who was not a registered guest of the hotel, retreated from the reporters to a washroom, where he remained until being escorted from the premises by hotel security. The encounter between Edwards and theEnquirer reporters was later confirmed by a hotel guard interviewed by Fox News. Edwards' spokespeople did not respond to Fox's request for comment on the incident.[35]

In articles published immediately after the hotel encounter, the Enquirer claimed to be in possession of evidence showing that Edwards had visited Hunter and her child in the Hilton for several hours, including a videotape of Hunter entering the room, where she allegedly met Edwards, and one of Edwards leaving the same room. However, the paper declined a request from Fox News to release photos or videotape of the incident.[35] In an interview with Radar, Perel said that the Enquirer would release the photos when "the time is right."[36] The Enquirer later stated that it had filed a "criminal complaint" against the hotel's security over its conduct during the encounter, but the Beverly Hills Police Department said that there was no criminal complaint and that only an "incident report" was under investigation.[35]

When Edwards was questioned at a New Orleans event on July 23, 2008, he stated, "I have no idea what you're asking about. I've responded, consistently, to these tabloid allegations by saying I don't respond to these lies and you know that ... and I stand by that."[35] On the same day, Hunter appeared on the television program, Extra, describing the Enquirer story as "completely unfounded and ridiculous".[37]

On August 6, 2008, the Enquirer published a blurry photo that allegedly portrayed Edwards holding Hunter's baby