What Really Happened

by Rielle Hunter

  She turned to me as she walked into the kitchen and said, “Pack a bag. It’s time for you to go. That was the fucking National Enquirer!”

  I walked upstairs and my phone rang again. It was Johnny calling me back about the webisodes. I told him that the National Enquirer had just been at the front door.

  “Are they still there?”

  “I don’t know. I am in Cole’s room right now and the windows face the rear of the house. I am going to pack a bag and get out of here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, I gotta go.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you.”

  I called Andrew immediately. “The National Enquirer just knocked on the door. I gotta get out of here. I’m going to buy a ticket. I’ll call you back.”

  I went upstairs and bought a roundtrip ticket to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, 8:30 p.m. flight, returning in a couple of weeks

  As I was on my computer, I saw an email from Pigeon O’Brien, the woman who had designed my website, and to whom I hadn’t spoken or been in any contact with since early Spring 2006. I read the message, which was very weird; she was writing as though we’d been in close contact for the last year, as if I had spoken to her the day before. To make things even weirder, it was sent at 4:18 in the afternoon, right around the time the Enquirer was knocking on my door.

  Her email read: “Okay, so my nerves are on edge and I can only imagine yours. But I am sending good thoughts to you. I am a little baffled. . . . Call if you can.” (She gave her phone number.) “I hope you are well. I know that you are. Big smooches from here. Cats and dogs and fishes are all sending love. As do I.”

  I knew instantly that Pigeon had something to do with the National Enquirer, but I couldn’t focus on that because I needed to get the hell out of Dodge. I packed one bag—my red suitcase with wheels that I used when I worked for Johnny. It was easy to pack given my clothing options were limited to the few new pregnancy clothes I had purchased. I packed them and my toiletries.

  I did not pack my computer or any personal contents from my room, including my hatbox where I kept my prized possessions. I was the target, and my mission was now to keep my daughter hidden.

  I called Andrew and told him what flight I was on. He told me he would pick me up. I changed my clothes, put on my new pregnancy jeans and a black T-shirt, and threw on a black three-quarter-length cotton coat. I kissed and hugged my godsons, Jack and Cole, goodbye. After fully scouting the area for any lurking Enquirer reporters, Mimi pulled the car around the back and put my suitcase in the car. I went down the back stairs, got in the car, and crouched down to remain out of view until we were well away from the house.

  Andrew picked me up from the airport in his brand-new, souped-up silver Jeep—the tires were the size of tractor wheels. I guess because he wasn’t driving for the senator anymore he traded in his Suburban for something a little flashier. Apparently shock absorbers don’t come with these mammoth-wheeled machines, either. To make matters worse, Andrew had yet to master how to keep the top securely fastened, and it threatened to blow off while we were driving. I would have found the whole thing really funny had I not been five months pregnant, able to feel every bump in the road, and close to vomiting the entire ride. Johnny called during our ride and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “With Andrew.”

  “Yes, but where are you?”

  “North Carolina.”

  “Oh.”

  And that “oh” was not a happy “oh,” or a, “Thank God you’re here ‘oh.’” That “oh” was a deflated “oh,” a “that sucks ‘oh.’” Johnny never thought it was a good idea for me to be anywhere near North Carolina, yet here I was in North Carolina. The National Enquirer was after me, and I was going to hide out for a few days twenty minutes away from Elizabeth? He was clearly less than thrilled with this development. I really believe that if Johnny had anything to do with this decision, I would have been on a plane to France or some other country halfway around the world from Elizabeth.

  After I hung up with Johnny, Andrew said, “You need to come up with another name for my kids to call you, given that they may run into Jack and Emma. We don’t want them saying ‘Rielle is at our house.’”

  I said, “How about Jaya? Jaya James, James was my dad’s name.” Jaya was the name of a character in a screenplay I had written and rewritten for about three years. I had to repeat Jaya a few times for Andrew so he could pronounce it.

  And that’s how my alias was born. That alias ended up on my daughter’s birth certificate because the hospital needed to tie my medical records to her birth records.

  I got to Andrew’s deluxe rental house in the Governors Club and met Cheri Young for the first time. Andrew had told me that she was shy about meeting me because she was wearing a head monitor because she was getting migraine headaches and the doctors were trying to determine what was going on. Andrew had told me over and over that she was just a “sweetie” and that I would love her. Let’s just say sweet is not a word I would ever use to describe Cheri.

  What appeared to be going on at first glance was not too different from many marriages I had seen before: angry wife is unaware that she is really pissed at herself for staying with this sorry excuse for a human being and projects it all on to him, as if it were his fault for her being in this mess.

  Cheri was not someone who would ever be my friend under any circumstances. No friendly vibes, no “same wavelength.” In fact, if she were someone I met at a party, I wouldn’t spend a moment talking to her. She was clearly the exact opposite of Andrew. He was like a Golden Retriever puppy—sweet, devoted, harmless, and needing a lot of attention. Cheri was more like an abused miniature Doberman Pinscher. But all I could think of at the time was: God bless her. She had some contraption on her head, three kids under the age of six (two with health problems), an absent husband who was avoiding her at all costs, and now he has invited his great love’s pregnant lover to stay in their house. Oh, this was going to be interesting.

  During the next few days, it became clear that the National Enquirer was probably going to publish something about me because its reporters had attempted to contact everyone who remotely knew me. I could see that it was just going to be a matter of time before something was published. I believe it was Lisa who first recommended that I get a lawyer because I needed someone to protect me.

  Andrew took me to the AT&T store where I got a new phone and phone number, under a different name and account that he paid for. We also looked at houses to rent. The one from the link he had sent me was also in the Governors Club, a gated community, and it was the one that seemed the best. It was available starting October 11th; the rent was around twenty-seven hundred dollars a month.

  According to Johnny, he met with Lisa, Fred, and Elizabeth in Iowa, where Elizabeth screamed at Fred and Lisa for being my friend. I was told that Elizabeth went on to harass Lisa about this long after Fred had passed away. When I heard that, I felt really sad—hadn’t Lisa been through enough?

  During the meeting in Iowa, as Elizabeth screamed at everyone, Fred and Lisa were talking about a lawyer for me, mentioning two that they thought would be good. One was described as very good-looking, and Elizabeth screamed, “That’s what the whore needs, the good-looking one! Give her the good-looking one.” I have no idea what her thinking was on that, but thanks to Elizabeth, Lisa called and gave me the number of the good-looking lawyer, whom I called immediately.

  Oddly enough, given that he came through Elizabeth’s request, he turned out not only to be a great lawyer but one of the greatest people on the planet. And even though he is no longer my lawyer, he is someone I will always call a dear friend.

  This lawyer, Rob Gordon, made it clear to Fred and Lisa right away that if he became my lawyer, he could no longer talk to them about me u
nless I gave him permission to do so. He was my lawyer, and my interests were the ones he was protecting, not theirs. I cannot even begin to convey the level of Rob’s integrity and selflessness. He worked his ass off in order to protect my privacy (and later my daughter’s) and refused any and all payment from Fred for representing me.

  I spoke to Rob for the first time while I was sitting on the stairs in Andrew’s rental house. I felt immediately emotionally supported and extremely grateful for having him in my corner.

  Using one of Andrew’s borrowed laptops, I responded to Pigeon’s email on September 30th. In my email I wrote, “I have no idea what you’re thinking about all this, and I can’t talk about anything to anyone to set anything straight . . . and it’s not at all what it seems. . . .” I signed it “with love,” which is how I used to sign everything back then. I had no idea what she would do, but given she wasn’t actually my friend and had many emotional problems, I thought anything was possible.

  Cheri’s parents were coming to stay with the Youngs. Andrew was not at all happy about this because he believed they hated him. Clearly I needed to leave their house but I needed a car. Andrew told me I should pick out whatever I wanted. Well, that’s fine and dandy, but who is going to pay for it? Andrew told me that he and Cheri had just sold their house in Raleigh and made a lot of money so they had plenty of cash and would just need to get reimbursed at a later date. Andrew mentioned over and over how lucky I was timing-wise given that they had so much extra cash flow. They could afford to float me for a while and Andrew was adamant about I should buy whatever car I wanted.

  I picked out a used BMW X3. I thought it would be the perfect mommy car. Johnny had a different reaction. He flipped out! “A BMW? What? How are you going to pay for that? What is Andrew doing buying you a BMW?” (In retrospect, that does not at all sound like someone who had Andrew solicit a bunch of money—three hundred and fifty thousand dollars by this point—to keep me happy.) I told Johnny that Andrew had said over and over that it wasn’t a problem because they had sold their house in Raleigh, had plenty of cash, and would only need to be reimbursed later. Apparently that was the same story that Andrew had also told Johnny. (And shockingly enough that actually turned out to be true. They did have plenty of cash from the sale of their house to pay for my expenses.)

  As we talked further, it became clear to me that Johnny also thought—or was terrified—that I had some fancy ideas in my head about moving down to North Carolina, just moving myself right in to become the next Mrs. John Edwards. I set him straight about that right then and there. I did not and still do not want to get married. That’s just not who I am. I was married once before and it didn’t work out. Life is too unpredictable to commit to someone for the rest of your life.

  I felt him calming down a bit. I meant what I had said and knew that he believed me.

  Because I needed to vacate the Youngs’ fancy rental house while Cheri’s parents were visiting, I settled on going up to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, for a few days, where I had shown horses and vacationed as a child. I was actually very excited about it because I had not been there in a very long time.

  Johnny came over to the Youngs’ rental house before I left and brought me one of his black cashmere sweaters for my trip to Blowing Rock. I didn’t own a sweater that would fit me because it hadn’t got cold yet and I hadn’t gotten around to purchasing any cold-weather pregnancy clothes.

  Johnny and I were the only ones in the house for a few hours. We sat out on the deck talking for a while and spent some time in the room I was staying in. Johnny was surprised by how much he loved me in North Carolina. I was very calm, peaceful, and relaxed. He claimed that I wasn’t like that in New York.

  I would later revisit this time with Johnny many times when I heard rumors in 2009 that Andrew claimed he had an intimate video of me when I was pregnant. I wondered whether Andrew had taped us without our knowledge because the only private video we had ever made was in 2006. I had destroyed it (or at least thought I had) and more importantly, I wasn’t pregnant in 2006. Did Andrew tape us? Did he steal footage and reassemble a new tape, then lie about the pregnant part? Or was he bluffing? I didn’t know.

  When I left Andrew’s house to go to Blowing Rock, I packed all the belongings I had. I left nothing behind. I made sure there was no trace of me in my room because Cheri’s parents were going to be staying in that room. It was easy to do given I had only a few clothes and toiletries. All of my personal belongings were still with Mimi, in my attic room in New Jersey.

  I stayed at the Graylyn International Conference Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I headed to Blowing Rock in the morning, where I stayed at the Chetola Resort. I went to some outlet stores and bought a bunch of Ralph Lauren towels for my new rental house. I went shopping on Main Street and found the most amazing Bella Notte pink quilt that I bought for my baby. All of this would eventually disappear from my house, along with many of my personal items that further benefited Andrew’s book sales.

  (Strangely enough, the statue of St. Francis, which I had also bought for my daughter in Blowing Rock, remained in my rental house untouched—no doubt a weird deity to the Youngs.)

  I was in an upstairs store on Main Street looking at bed skirts when my cell rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was Jonathan Prince, with whom I hadn’t spoken since I gave him all the video footage in January 2007. I picked up, skipping any salutation, and immediately asked, “How did you get my number?”

  “Lisa Blue.” Then, without missing a beat, he said, “The National Enquirer claims they have emails from you telling someone about an affair with John Edwards. Have you ever emailed anyone about anything that names John Edwards?”

  I replied that I had never sent an email identifying John Edwards to anyone, to the best of my recollection. But I could search through my email and see for sure if that’s correct. The only email I could recall was one I sent in the spring of 2006, which mentioned a John from North Carolina with small kids. Yeah, so what? There are a million Johns in North Carolina with small kids.

  He asked again, “Did you ever identify John Edwards in an email?”

  “No, I don’t believe so, but let me check and make sure.”

  “Okay, get back to me.”

  “Okay.”

  I hung up and my first thought was: Pigeon. I almost called Jay to say, “WTF?” But I didn’t; I saved it for when we had lunch in New York in 2009. Jay’s reply was, “Pigeon said to me she had nothing to do with it.”

  “Jay, please. She sold the Enquirer emails. They printed them. It was her.”

  After Blowing Rock I returned to Andrew’s house and parked the car in the second garage underneath the house, adjacent to the basement, because Cheri’s parents were still there. I was in the basement talking to Prince. The Enquirer was going forward with the story, and he thought I should comment. I disagreed. If the Enquirer got a comment from me, it could use my name. Because I was a private citizen, the story couldn’t name me until I commented; if they printed it without me commenting it would be libel. From my end, I was attempting to hold on to my privacy and I didn’t want to lie.

  Prince thought I should comment so that it would dissuade the mainstream media from chasing the story. I just had no idea what the frenzy would be like. He really understood the media; I did not.

  The problem was that what Prince wanted was something I couldn’t deliver, which he had no way of knowing. I couldn’t lie. And not only did he want a denial of an affair, he wanted me to say something about how much I respected John and Elizabeth’s marriage.

  Yeah, right. Why didn’t I just say I was abducted by aliens?

  Clearly, I did not respect a marriage filled with lies and abuse nor could I bring myself to say that I did.

  I left the basement of the Youngs’ rental house and went to a pricey bed-and-breakfast that Andrew had picked out and arran
ged. I stayed there for a few days before I moved into my rental house.

  I was at that bed and breakfast when the Enquirer piece came out. I remember going for a walk on a trail near the B&B and feeling paranoid that people would recognize me.

  The Enquirer did not name me, but the story was filled with BS, like how the affair started and ended. As Prince predicted, the mainstream media went into a feeding frenzy—the first of hundreds that I would experience—in which I was the target and information about my life was under siege. The amount of energy that goes into pursuing a scandal is still baffling to me.

  My lawyer, Rob, had to have security escort members of the press out of his waiting room and building in New York City. Mimi and her family were hounded and seriously harassed.

  I called Jonathan Darman and asked him what would happen if I responded to ABC, as opposed to issuing a statement online, which is what Prince wanted me to do. He told me that if I responded to mainstream, everyone would report on it, but if I kept it online, chances are it wouldn’t jump. But if I were to give it to anyone, I should give it to him. I don’t remember if he pitched himself first but I remember feeling angry. I was asking him as my friend to tell me how the media works, and he pitched himself. (He showed me how the media works, all right.) We hung up and soon after, he sent me an email. It’s one of the few I saved. It said:

  Hey, Left you a message a little while ago. I wanted to talk with you because our last conversation left me with a weird feeling. I know this is the last thing you’re thinking about right now but I think for the sake of our friendship, which has always been based on mutual trust and demands openness and honesty to survive, we need to set up some ground rules for going forward. From here on out, as long as this stupid story is alive, I can’t talk to you “between you and me.” We can talk off the record from now until the end of time if you wish and I can give you MY WORD—as a friend, as a journalist, as a human being—that nothing you tell me will ever appear in Newsweek unless you want it to. But the fact remains that I cover John Edwards and I have to be able to talk openly with my bosses about a story that involves him. Even if I’m not involved in our coverage, I can’t conceal information from them, nor do I want to, especially when you’re telling me this whole story is bullshit. I can tell my bosses that anything you say to me is off the record and it can’t show up in our coverage, if we ever choose to pursue this story. But I am required to be open with them about this, and everything else. It’s not that I don’t value our friendship. This is the way I’d have to operate with a story concerning anyone, even a member of my own family. In fact, it IS the way I operate with a member of my own family, my dad. SO considering all that, I understand if you choose not to talk to me in the same way you would another friend. And I understand if you choose not to talk to me at all. That would suck, of course, because I don’t want to lose touch with you, now or ever. And I also think it is in your interest to keep talking to me, because I think this story is total bullshit, while every other journalist in the world starts with the assumption that it’s true. Even if I can’t be completely helpful to you as a friend right now, I can be helpful to you as a journalist, much more helpful than anyone else around. Anyway, I hope you’ve read this far without getting really pissed off or feeling dirty. Please understand that I’m saying all of this not to put distance between us, simply to make sure we preserve total honesty. You’ve got a million other things to think about right now, you don’t need weirdness from me. So I hope I hear from you soon. I’ll be thinking about you, as always. XO J