Secrets And Lies: Edwards Sex Tape Not On The Market (Thank God.)

Sex tapes! Hush money! Father complexes! Just when you thought the John Edwards/Andrew Young situation couldn’t get any ickier:

Okay, you know Andrew Young, the skeezy Edwards-right-hand-man-turned-pretend-father-of-Rielle-Hunter’s-baby-turned-tell-all-author? Yeah, that one. Okay, well now it’s come to light, according to Radar, that he wasn’t content merely to tarnish his former first mate in print (the latest: that Edwards paid Hunter a ton of donated hush money, likely from Bunny Mellon), that was merely one prong. Prior to publishing The Politician, says Radar, Young was trying to find a buyer for that sex tape he “found in the trash” and was compelled to repair and watch.

Who, you ask, would actually want to watch the sex tape of John Edwards with a pregnant Rielle Hunter? Well, that’s a moot point, since Hunter has obtained a restraining order that prohibits Young from disseminating the video.

Almost as compelling a question: who is this guy who within the space of a year has gone from claiming Edwards’ baby as his own – going so far as to take Hunter into his home with his wife and kids – to exposing him to anyone who will listen and peddling his most intimate home movies? The Times was curious too, although all they seem able to determine is that Young, at best, fell prey to a father complex and then got in over his head. The venality leaps out from between the lines, but that’s unavoidable under the circumstances. Concludes Janet Maslin,

And Mr. Young, for all his discreet vengefulness, is sympathetic to any politician’s plight. The funny thing is that he may actually have done Mr. Edwards a favor. By any traditional standard this book would demolish Mr. Edwards’s career. Today disgrace doesn’t necessarily work that way. Regardless of whether Mr. Edwards can rise again, he now has nowhere left to fall.

And what’s more, if there’s anything worse than the low-life who’s perpetrated all this, it’s the low-life trying to profit off it when the tide turns. With friends like Young, you may not need enemies, but you can’t suffer by comparison.

Update: In case there hadn’t been quite enough Edwards dirt dished today, a North Carolina news station has unearthed police records stating that cops were called to the Edwards home in 2008; at the time, Elizabeth charged that her husband, who did not live with her, had stolen her wallet and credit cards.

Exclusive: Andrew Young Was Trying To Sell John Edwards’ Sex Tape [Radar]
Bid To Quash John Edwards Sex Tape [The Smoking Gun]

New John Edwards Book Details Hush Money [CBS]
The Dutiful And The Mind-Boggling [NY Times]
Deputies Called To Edwards Home In 2008 [WRAL]
John Edwards’ Sugar Mama [Daily Beast]