Campaign cad John Edwards' cheating ways made his wife, Elizabeth, sick to her stomach - literally.After the former presidential hopeful confessed his betrayal, Elizabeth Edwards writes in her new book, "I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up."
Elizabeth, 59, who is terminally ill with cancer, speaks in far more detail than before about her husband's infidelity in her new memoir, "Resilience," due to be published May 12 by Broadway Books. A copy was obtained by the Daily News.
Despite feeling deeply deceived, Elizabeth Edwards nonetheless publicly stood by her husband's side, lending his candidacy the aura of a warm, loving family life.
But she had actually wanted him to quit the race to protect the family. Edwards admitted the hanky-panky to her days after declaring his candidacy in 2006 - almost a year before the National Enquirer reported it.
She was afraid of the destructive questions Edwards' affair with videographer Rielle Hunter would raise.
Later events proved her right. "He should not have run," she says.
Edwards did not publicly admit the affair until last August - seven months after he quit the race, and the National Enquirer had reported he was the father of Hunter's infant daughter.
Edwards denied paternity, and his wife's book doesn't address that issue.
But it does highlight Elizabeth Edwards' anger and sorrow at being duped by a man whose four children she'd borne and whose political ambitions she'd passionately supported for so many years.
Hunter initially seduced Edwards using a worn come-on line, Elizabeth writes:
"You are so hot," Hunter told him outside a swank New York hotel. The campaign ultimately paid Hunter $114,000 to produce a batch of short films on his candidacy.
She lashes out at Hunter, now 45, whose name she never actually uses in the book, as a parasitic groupie who invaded the Edwardses' life.
Her own life may be tragic, she concludes, but Hunter's is "pathetic."
Even when Edwards confessed to his wife, he lied, claiming he had slipped up just once, Elizabeth writes. His original version of the story "left most of the truth out," she writes.
While Elizabeth still hasn't fully come to terms with her man's roaming, the memoir is laced with a powerful dose of forgiveness.
"I lie in bed, circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions, and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It matters," she writes.
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Oh, and by the way- John Edwards is now facing federal investigation:
RALEIGH, NC (AP) - His once-prominent political career is buried and the turmoil of his marriage is playing out in public. Now, John Edwards is facing a federal inquiry.
WASHINGTON – Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, died Tuesday after a six-year fight with cancer, her family said. She was 61.
