Rielle Hunter On Oprah: Live Coverage

For those of you mired in the office and just dying to catch every uncomfy moment of Hunter’s “silence-breaking” in real time, have we got a treat for you! “Oprah Exclusive: Rielle Hunter‘s First Television Interview”: the liveblog.

4:00 Okay. Okay. Here they are! They’re sitting in some kind of den. There’s a bookcase visible with colorful toys on it.

4:01 Rielle says she calls him “Johnny.” Because it’s his “birth name.”

4:03 Rielle says she’s not a “new-age airhead.” She is wearing an azalea-colored cardigan, an embellished tank, a glass necklace, cuffed jeans and red flip-flops.

4:04 She’s also not a “golddigger.” Or a “homewrecker.”

4:04 Oprah is nodding gravely.

4:05 “You can’t steal someone else’s husband. They’re not property.”

4:05 This is weird. It’s oddly flat. Like everyone’s on quaaludes. Including me. Maybe because she said all this same stuff about meeting Edwards in her GQ interview.

4:06 Oprah: “Did you mean ‘hot,’ sexy?”
Rielle: “No. I meant he had it going on.”

4:07 She knew when they met she could help Edwards be his authentic self. She felt it in her heart.

4:08 Uh-oh. We’re about to hear about their first tryst. She is grinning roguishly.

4:09 He wanted to live a life of truth. He told her. In his hotel room. Rielle has a weird drawl.

4:10 “Fade to black,” she says about their first tryst. Because she’s a “very private person.”

4:11 Falling in love with someone living a lie was like “a cosmic joke” to a truth-seeker like Rielle.

4:15 And we’re back! Oprah gives us the timeline: Elizabeth discovers the affair. Rielle says the power of the love overruled her qualms.

4:17 How did Elizabeth find out? “I said, ‘hey baby,’ and she hung up.”

4:18 He said it was over. But clearly Elizabeth was standing over him. Rielle “never believed it was over.”

4:20 “I’m conservative that way. I believe in truth. I think you need to have your life squared away before you can serve the public.”

4:20 Oprah asks if she understands that sounds like a contradiction. Rielle says yes. But, “I followed my heart. And I believe it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t the one who made a commitment to Elizabeth. He just had a really unique way…of living a life of truth.”

4:24 Cirque du Soleil “Banana Shpeel?” Do. Not. Want.

4:25 And we’re back. Elizabeth’s cancer returns. Rielle gets pregnant. The Edwardses renews their vows.

4:25 Oprah: “You were pregnant, carrying this man’s child…how did that make you feel?”

4:26 It made it her feel bad. Because she, as a person, could never betray a marriage vow. Someone doing that made her sad.

4:27 Edwards was “gracious” when he learned she was pregnant.

4:27 He never suggested she get an abortion…although she can’t say he was “fully supportive” because he “had issues with the timing.”

4:28 (Being married and running for the presidency and all.)

4:28 “We never used birth control.”

4:29 He was “extremely angry” when she was photographed by the Enquirer. “He was screaming…and he’s not a screamer.”

4:30 It was Andrew Young’s idea, says Rielle, to claim paternity. She was against it. Agreeing to the fake paternity scheme was, says Rielle, “her biggest mistake.”

4:31 Being pressured to pretend Andrew Young was the baby’s father? “It was a hard time, Oprah.”

4:32 “If he got out of the race because of [Frances] and she thought that it was her fault…that was too hard for me. So I said yes.”

OK, commercial. Not gonna lie, kids, this is not a fun watch. No one is having a good time. Although, Rielle’s maybe having a less bad time than most of us would in the same position.

4:35 Joycelyn Elders just did a birth-control spot. Coincidence?

4:36 (A local dog’s life-saving medicine is stuck in customs! News at 5!)

4:36 Back. Edwards’ first meeting with their daughter was “filled with love.” Even though he’d just publicly denied being the father.

4:37 Clip of Edwards saying, “I have no idea who that baby is.”

4:38 Everyone told him not to do that interview. Elizabeth made him. He hadn’t told Elizabeth because he was scared of her finding out.

4:39 He explained to Rielle that “it didn’t mean anything.” Oprah asks how she knows he’s not lying to her, Rielle. Rielle says she “knows him like the back of my hand.” And that he was searching for his integrity. Or something. My mind is kind of boggling.

4:40 Commercial. Up next, I’m afraid we hear about the sex tape. And the pantsless GQ photos.

4:43 Ugh. The sex tape. Oprah: “Why…did you all…choose…to put yourself on tape?”

4:44 Afterwards, they said, “well, that was not a great idea.” She “took an action to destroy the tape” and “put it with her personal belongings.” How did she destroy it? She cut it. And unrolled it.

4:45 Oprah: “why didn’t you burn it?”
Rielle: “That was my first thought. ‘Why didn’t I burn it?'”

4:46 Oprah: “Tell me why, in your effort to show us who you are, and speak your truth…the [GQ] photos?”
Rielle: “What a mistake that was.”

4:47 Oprah: “What were you thinking?…You had to take your pants off.”

4:47 Rielle said she wanted one photo of herself as “a beautiful woman” after all the tab pics in which she looked like “The Wicked Witch of the West.”

4:48 Edwards wished he’d been there to tell her not to do it. Oprah: “to say, ‘put on your pants.'”

Commercial

4:50 Oprah: “What’s the status of your relationship now?”
Rielle: “It’s private, Oprah.”

4:51 Oprah says she’s a little confused. Why the secrecy now?
Rielle: “I’m a private person…and I need boundaries.”

4:52 She trusts him completely. But she doesn’t need marriage to define who she is.

Wait, what? Another commercial?

Back.

4:54 What does Rielle want the world to understand?

Rielle: That all the hatred has to do with the haters’ fears, or their angers and disappointment about betrayals in their own lives. “It’s not about me. Because they don’t know me.”

4:56 She wants the world to know that she’s “real, authentic.” And “lives her truth.”

4:57 Does she think she hurt Elizabeth? She thinks “Elizabeth was hurt by the process.” You’d have to ask her, though.

4:58 She wouldn’t do it again, but she doesn’t regret it (?) because she “learned a lot.”

4:59 Will she, for the last time, reveal the status of her relationship? No. It’s private.