John and Elizabeth Edwards legally separated in January 2010 after John admitted to fathering a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. But the scandal worsened when, at the time, a close family friend told various gossip publications that the disgraced Democratic presidential candidate had struck his cancer-stricken wife during a shocking marriage-ending brawl.
John Edwards’ Infidelity and Sex Tape
After magazines revealed the existence of the politician’s lovechild with Rielle Hunter, Edwards’ political prospects abruptly came to an end. Initially, Edwards had denied that the baby was his.
“It all depends on what your definition of ‘mine’ is,” he told reporters. “The baby wasn’t legally remanded to me. I didn’t give birth to it. The baby didn’t come out of my penis. So, it’s difficult to say that this infant is somehow mine, the strictest sense of the term.”
However, after a judge informed Edwards that the baby did indeed, in some way, come from his penis, Edwards reluctantly admitted paternity of Hunter’s daughter, Frances, who is now nearly three.
But Edwards’ problems didn’t end there. His former assistant, Andrew Young, contacted the media shortly after, alleging that he had a sex tape of Edwards and Hunter.
Young also told of a frightening episode that occurred in Edwards' campaign headquarters, during which Young hid in a closet. The incident offered more evidence to support claims of Edwards’ propensity for physical violence.
A partial transcript of Young’s testimony to authorities follows:
I don’t know where to begin. I was working late, and Rielle came in looking for John. I tried to get her to leave, but she insisted that John had kidnapped her daughter. She refused to go until John told her where Frances was being kept. Then I heard John kick the door in. I ran to the closet.
John entered the room dressed in some kind of weird velvet leisure suit. He was carrying a small tank of nitrous oxide with him. I think that’s what it was. Rielle rushed over and addressed him by name. John slapped her across the face and screamed, “It’s Daddy, you s**t head! Where’s my bourbon?”
Rielle went to the cabinet and got out a bottle of whiskey. She started pouring the drink when John slapped her again and pushed her to the ground. He tore open her clothes and stuffed some kind of handkerchief into her mouth. Then he, I mean, he just raped the holy hell out of her. Kept calling her foul names and punching her in the face. Then he toweled off and left. Just like that. I’ve never seen anything so nasty and vulgar.
Young also mentioned a three-legged midget dancing on the sofa, but later attributed the vision to the amount of laughing gas filling the room.
Edwards Turns to Hollywood for Support
With his career shot, facing the financial challenges of raising a new child, and receiving nothing from his wife’s ample estate, Edwards has offered several Hollywood studios the rights to make a film out of his life’s story. The amount, though undisclosed, is said to be in the range of eight figures.
“Normally, we wouldn’t be interested in anything John Edwards did,” said one studio executive. “But after hearing all the gory details of Edwards’ affair, not to mention being snubbed in the will, we think we’re looking at box office gold. Elizabeth Edwards was an amazingly forgiving woman. John must’ve done some really awful crap to get bumped from her estate.”
Insiders agree, and California’s film industry, they claim, is gearing up to seize the opportunity. Four major studios are said to be vying for the rights to the John Edwards biopic. David Lynch has also been approached by every interested party to direct the film, which will explore Edwards’ life from the point of his presidential campaign to the present. Reportedly, Lynch has not only agreed to steer the project but also to write the script.
Sources close to Lynch say the initial concept of the film involves some kind of blind gypsy woman who lives in junkyard behind a trailer park, a family of humanoid dung beetles, a sexually confused hitchhiking transvestite, and a dogged but slightly retarded police detective. Sources believe Lynch plans to shoot the film using only primary colors, with a soundtrack composed of no more than seven piano notes and a broken cymbal.
