Rielle Hunter reportedly will allow paternity test

Report: John Edwards' ex-lover Rielle Hunter going ahead with paternity test
By Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, May 7th 2009, 4:00 AM

The ex-senator's former lover - furious at being portrayed as a stalker in his wife's media tour - reportedly is taking revenge and will allow a paternity test for her baby after all.

Rielle Hunter previously refused to allow DNA testing on baby Frances, born in February 2008. Edwards, even after the admitted affair, insisted he wasn't the father.

Her friends said then she hoped they still had a future together and hoped to protect the philandering pol from further ruin.

But on the eve of Elizabeth Edwards' appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" today to plug her new book, the National Enquirer reports that Hunter has changed her mind.

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/05/07/2009-05-07_edwards_exlover_is_testy.html

his poor kids.. Elizbeth signed on to politics, but they were all dragged into it:(

that's why I've been so puzzled by EE's actions.

taking over her family that she built.

How, does she think, her book and book tour are going to affect the children? When she is gone, does she want them to hate their father?

He's a total asswipe. He should have kept his mouth shut to the media about the whole thing and worked this out privately with he.

and to Elizabeth, that he was no longer willing to be the "family man"..and that he had found someone else..He should have asked for a divorce, but his political ambitions were stronger than his love of his families...old AND new..

The real irony is that he was "trapped".. either way he lost, so he just rolled the dice and hoped for the best..and got the worst (for him and everyone).

I guess he thought he had a better chance of being forgiven for cheating on a sick wife, than for divorcing her..

in the "long gallery of campaign photos"..in the Edwards Chapel Hill Estate while Oprah was there to discuss.."Daddy's Affair...and Mommy's Book?"

What selfish people they are....

and if they would cheat on their wife with you, they aren't worth it.

I'm suprised this wasn't done sooner if there was any possibility JE is the father. I can understand a reason to save someone's political career but when it comes to a child I would think it would be important to find out who the father really is. For the child's sake. Better late then never I guess.

Especially their own.

Now Hunter is going to have her say.

John would make a great spokesman for the condom industry.

No wonder our newspapers are dying.

and of course, they were spot on about the affair.

Sorry for the family.

you want to claim privacy you don't write about it, invite Oprah to your house and talk about it or go on The View. EE has put it out there in the public sphere.

You know where the possible father is on screen calling the mother various names and walks out onto the stage usually greeted by boos. Then after some arguing Maury says the results are in and usually famously says 'in the case of -fill in the blank- you are..." and sometimes when the male is right he usually high fives audience members and the woman goes to back crying with Maury promising her that they will find out who the father is. Oh what a terrible show. It's predictably the same 90% of the time.

I don't know why EE wrote about the affair in the first place and is now talking about it on television. Surely she had to know the whole mess would be dredged up again, and her children would have to endure the fallout. The kids will suffer most from all of the public blood letting. God, it's like pulling a scab off.

She's in a no win position here.

And choose to protect her kids from having this in the headlines on a daily basis. She chose to stay with John, even after all his failings. That choice has consequences. The children however had no choice, but they will bear the brunt of their parents' actions and decisions.

John, who paid off his mistress with campaign cash, violating Federal law in the process? His privacy?
Elizabeth, who went on multiple TV shows to talk about it, and wrote and is selling a book about it? Her privacy?
Rielle, who is announcing she'll have a paternity test and make the results public? Her privacy?

Whose privacy are we talking about, again?

Edwards is finished in politics. What goes on between him, his wife and his mistress doesn't interest me all that much.

Going after the story, you can certainly despise that expression of human nature that *makes* it a story rather than a sordid little episode that people not directly affected by it would automatically ignore.

she's directly pushing the whole sordid mess. As much sympathy as I have for what she's been through, there's no denying that.

I've long maintained that history would be entirely different if, instead of saying "I never had sex with that woman," Clinton had said "This is a private matter to be worked through within my own family, and I will be making no further public statements on the matter."

Similarly, EE should have issued some statement (months ago when the story broke) along the lines I propose for Clinton above, and, if she needed to let additional truth out, told people her point of view off the record. It wouldn't matter whether everyone knew who the "addtional truth" was coming from, the issue would still be officially personal.

Politician really need to be brave enough to say, from time to time, "none of your damned business."

I completely agree. The fact is that this is different from Clinton. EE is actively pushing this story and getting into all kinds of accusations. She seems to want it to be everyone's business. I don't get that.

George HWB said it and got away with it. Keeping the matter personal would have been the right move for both Clinton and Edwards. But what strikes me as extremely different is that BC was a known womanizer before he ran for president; the Clintons would have to deal with it, but it wasn't an extraordinary shock that he cheated in his personal life. Even extramarital sex in the WH had all happened before. Bill also didn't run on the hypocritical "family values" platform Edwards did, and there was far less reason pre-Clinton than post-Clinton, to expect the absolute madness of the press and no highly charged Internet complication existed yet. Edwards, on the other hand, had no such known history, so the shock value once the blogs and other media finally started covering the story would have to be intense, even if there hadn't been the cancer element, and both he and Elizabeth had to know it. Why would Edwards run under these conditions? Why would Elizabeth run next to him? It truly boggles my mind. I have no problem with her staying in the marriage, as I didn't with Hillary. This is a decision women (or men) who have been betrayed have to make for themselves, and there is a lot to be said for trying to save a family. But the public actions that threatened a nation - and now kicking this beehive all over again - Jesus, I will never understand it.

She wrote this to get it out there -- a philandering husband having an affair with a bar-fly. I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing. This Hunter woman started this mess; now she's going to see it played out, and if that means on national television, then so be it. Maybe this will be a lesson to the next one who tries to scam on a married politician -- as well as to the married politician looking for some strange while away from his wife.

and I hate to break it to you but JE is the one who broke his vows, not Rielle Hunter. He's the leading skank in this. And EE is, imo, doing damage to innocent children.

I didn't mean that this was one sided. Yes, having this played out in the media when there are innocents involved is horrible, but I still can't blame Elizabeth for what she did, and can't say I wouldn't have done the same. Guess that doesn't say much for my character, does it? Sorry.

I don't know what I would have done had I been EE myself. I don't think she has bad character, and nor would you if you reacted in the same way. Writing the book may have been cathartic. She's been through a lot with her cancer and her cheating husband. I am not comfortable piling up on her for this mess.

her child not knowing their own father?

My own biological father's parental rights were terminated for sound reasons when I was six years old; I hadn't seen him since I was six months old, anyway, and haven't missed him a bit. In contrast, my adoptive father is one of the most kind, generous and decent people I've ever known.

The two little kids are (8 or 9) and (10 or 11).

For many with no children in that age range, they might not realize that kids this age likely know as much of the details as we do. I was actually shocked when I heard kids in that age range talk about OJ and his wife and then with a younger kid, Bill Clinton and Monica. (I also found that kids in a car pool tend to forget one of the parents is driving.)

They were somewhat lucky that school was out of session in August 2008. I doubt they needed this resurrected. I hope they have good therapists - which they likely needed just to deal with their mom being terminally ill. This on top of that likely has made them think their world is caving in on them.

RH may have come on to him, but he was the one who made vows and broke them.

I'm afraid my post didn't read the way I meant it. They are both equally guilty.

If people are going to cheat on a spouse, they do. I also don't the the benefit to EE of highlighting what must be an intense humiliation. While I don't advocate wronged spouses taking on a doormat role, what does she gain by thrashing this all out again?

Public brawls are so unbecoming and hurt so many innocent people.

Elizabeth Edwards knows she has an illness that she will die from. I think she just wants her say. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but the whole situation is just so complicated by the fact that there is a child involved.

This may be the only good to come out of this round, if it happens. At least the little girl won't be denied her identity.

is fine with me. I cannot believe that he was stupid enough to do this. If Barack Obama had decided to wait four or eight years, there's a sizable chance that Edwards would have won Iowa and become the nominee, and all of this would have come tumbling out during the general election campaign.

John Edwards almost guaranteed us President McCain.

people bring up Clinton, Spitzer and others, but none of them went as far as Edwards in covering up and continuing to do it and lying to those closest to him and allowing them to go out and defend him for it.

child's future if Edwards is the father.

If he isn't then what does Hunter have to lose from a paternity test?

Even though the child looks exactly like him, he got a married campaign staffer to say he knocked up Hunter and the child is his. It would defeat the purpose of the smoke screen to pay child support.

On the other hand I think he IS paying hush money to Hunter. All was going well until Elizabeth wrote this book and went on the talk show junket and started flinging the mud. Now Hunter is going to come out swinging and it will no doubt get ugly.

Hush money is secretive and usually (if you're John Edwards or Jesse Jackson) being drawn from inappropriate funds.

or something like that.

Rielle Hunter has the potential to do HUGE harm to the Edwards family. I think John tried to contain her and protect himself and Elizabeth has upset the whole applecart. I wonder if JE knew how big a part the affair was going to be in EE's book?

For one thing, if the paternity test shows JE as the father, there will be even more serious looking into about the financial payouts to Rielle - who made them and with what funds? Why did that Edwards staffer say that he was the father? What was in it for him?

This will be fodder for months for the tabloids. Really poor judgment on Elizabeth's part. Getting out her side of the story is probably not going to be worth the turmoil it causes. She was ALREADY seen as the victim. Now that former Edwards supporters (like me) know that she actively participated in a scandal cover-up that would have cost us the election, she's going to forfeit that as well.

The person who benefits the most from all this is Rielle Hunter. She was a groupie-type in the first place, looking for reflected glory and she's going to harvest it by the bucketful.

And yeah, the only person who benefits from EE's making this into a huge media deal, is Hunter.

If John has swindled and defrauded his supporters by giving their money to the two-bit tramp he knocked up, then he deserves whatever consequences arise from that.

I hope he goes to jail.

unless its his baby.

so publically trashing Hunter. Weird all the way around.

just happy to have the whole truth out there. Living with someone who continually lies to her ("Never heard of this woman!; "It just happened once"; "Okay... it happened more than once, but definitely not my child") is not easy to do. Maybe getting the whole truth out there and dealing with the fall out will make things easier for Elizabeth Edwards.

If it comes out that it isn't John's child that is good news in ruling that one out, there is only one other possibility that I'm aware of.

Why would she do that?

to a poster saying she shouldn't do this unless it is JE's child.

would just go away.

Hunter is going to be doing the talk show circuit to counter Elizabeth's book. This whole thing will be played out on daytime tv. I could not believe Brian Williams even covered the Elizabeth Edwards - Oprah interview on the evening news. Really, does this constitute hard news?:eyes: