the real rielle hunter

By now you’ve probably all heard that Rielle Hunter, the woman who John Edwards gave up his life for, used to date the author Jay McInerney, right?

Back then, her name was Lisa Druck, and, according to McInerney, she was an “an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year-old.” This was the mid-80’s and she was big on the New York party scene. They only dated for a few months, but she left a big impression on the author — so much so that he based the protagonist of his book, “Story of My Life,” on her.

Here’s how McInerney recalls it:

…The way I remember it, I first met Rielle Hunter in a nightclub called Nells in early 1987, although the circumstances of our first meeting seem to be in dispute… In my defense I can only say that events of that decade are not always as clearly etched in memory as we might wish, and neither of us was living a very sober or reflective life back then. At that time Rielle’s name was Lisa Druck, and when she wasn’t out at nightclubs she was taking acting classes. We dated for only a few months, but in that period I spent a lot of time with Lisa and her friends, whose behavior intrigued and appalled me to such an extent that I ended up basing a novel on the experience. The novel was called Story of My Life, and it was narrated in the first person from the point of view of an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year-old who was, shall we say, inspired by Lisa. I certainly thought of Alison Poole as a sympathetic and ultimately endearing character. One of her most striking traits was her obsession with truth-telling and her horror of being lied to, something that I certainly took directly from Lisa. When Lisa moved to California and got married I lost track of her, though I was reminded of her whenever someone would ask me, at book signings and lectures, what I imagined happened to Alison Poole after the book ended — whether I saw her as turning her life around or not. Through the grapevine I picked up occasional reports from the West Coast. I heard that Lisa had changed her name to Rielle, that she’d gotten divorced, and that she was increasingly engaged in various spiritual quests which she attempted to explain to me when I finally ran into her…

And, even more shocking — she apparently had a bit part in the Goldie Hawn / Kurt Russell movie “Overboard”, which, for some reason, I’ve seen four times. I don’t think she spoke in it. She just kind of danced around in a bikini, shaking her big 80’s hair.

As if John Edwards didn’t look foolish enough already, running through a hotel basement and hiding from “National Enquirer” reporters in a bathroom stall, now we discover that he did it all for a big apple Bonnie Lee Bakley – a wanna-be actress with a screw loose, and an appetite for men with wealth and power. It would really be hilarious if not for all the families living in poverty who were counting on him to raise the minimum wage and reform the system.

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23 Comments

  1. Jim
    Posted August 14, 2008 at 11:07 pm | Permalink

    I think you’re thinking of this scene:
    http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/13/get_your_very_own_dancin_riell_8284.php

  2. egpenet
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 12:29 am | Permalink

    John Edwards has ALWAYS been a waste of time.

    Sorry, Elizabeth, you married a jerk.

    Sorry, kids, your Dad is an asshole.

    John … find the Tallahatchie Bridge and listen to the song one more time … and then …

  3. Posted August 15, 2008 at 11:05 am | Permalink

    That’s odd — I just was talking about Jay McInerney a few days ago after seeing “Definitely, Maybe,” another movie about various tales of living in NYC. I didn’t know he was still around past 1990 — guess he is grabbing at the Edwards story to get back in the press?

  4. Posted August 15, 2008 at 11:11 am | Permalink

    Nell’s was owned by “Little Nell” of Rocky Horror fame. This Edwards thing is just getting more and more sordid, in a completely boring Friday night midnight kind of way.

  5. Lester
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 11:33 am | Permalink

    Nell moved back to Australia. Before leaving, she sold her house in Brooklyn, known as Boerum Hill, to the actor Heath Ledger.

  6. Lester
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 11:38 am | Permalink

    Correction. The neighborhood is Boerum Hill. Not the house itself.

  7. Robert
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 12:09 pm | Permalink

    Though I can understand egpenet’s sentiment, I still don’t think of JRE as a waste of time. From watching and listening to him many times in person, I still believe he is very sincere and committed to his political and social causes. I did however see Edwards as somewhat naive in some way, but I could never have guessed it was this bad.

  8. Robert
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 1:10 pm | Permalink

    I understand changing one’s name from ‘Druck’ to ‘Hunter’ but who changes their name from ‘Lisa’ to ‘Rielle’? That’s pure nuts.

  9. grandma
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 5:30 pm | Permalink

    What a liar. Both of them. To stand in front of a nation and dish out the BS. This is not just a current story, this will be an ongoing saga.
    Of course the baby is his. Time will tell.

  10. Posted August 15, 2008 at 7:47 pm | Permalink

    Edwards supporters/ex-supporters:

    Isn’t dumping on him a way to feel better that your choice of candidate wasn’t nominated? Shouldn’t you all be thanking him right now?

  11. Posted August 15, 2008 at 7:53 pm | Permalink

    And I mean that as a joke of course, I think it’s a shame what happened, especially for his family…

  12. Reclusion
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 9:07 pm | Permalink

    She looks like a real slut.

  13. publius
    Posted August 15, 2008 at 10:08 pm | Permalink

    Did Edwards take a page out of the Clinton smear machine? Always attack the woman you commit adultry with. Real class.

  14. Ol' E Cross
    Posted August 16, 2008 at 1:32 am | Permalink

    It still hurts. Maybe I should vote for Nader again.

    “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty candidate your wife…”

    So true. That’s some deep shit.

  15. Oliva
    Posted August 16, 2008 at 9:14 am | Permalink

    His really unimpressive explanation, re. narcissism and ego, to me really undercuts his populist message, makes it hollow in fact–that together with his gigantic house newly erected upon beautiful land in NC. (The house was always a problematic thing for a populist candidate, didn’t square well [way too many rooms to square well]. Now we find he was really riding along on ego, not principle. Ouch.)

  16. nammeroo
    Posted August 16, 2008 at 3:33 pm | Permalink

    Voting for Ralph Nader is a great idea. At least Nader is a CONSISTENT progressive, with a long record of successful activism to back him up. With Ralph, there is no concern about him sliding to the center on issues.

  17. Bill Stevens
    Posted August 16, 2008 at 7:57 pm | Permalink

    I knew Lisa Druck in high school. We didn’t go to the same school, but she rode at the same stable I did. She was hot and popular. I never got up the nerve to talk to her. I was shy and a few years younger. One crazy thing about her was that whenever she came into the barn, the stallion they had for stud would go apeshit. My parents couldn’t afford the full board so I worked at the barn pretty much every day after school for four years. I saw a lot of riders come through there and I never saw the stallion go nuts like he did when Lisa walked by. One day she was riding and the stallion was out in the pasture. Apparently he figured out that she was in the paddock nearby. He was snorting and digging at the ground, and then he just took off. He busted right through the top rail as he jumped the fence into the paddock. I could’ve sworn his eyes were locked on Lisa the whole time. Before anyone knew what was happening, he reared up and mounted her horse. I remember seeing his huge penis extended all the way out. It was insane. And the thing was, she was riding a gelding (a neutered male.) I don’t know where he planned to stick that thing. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t fall off before the stallion took a bite of the back of her head. His top teeth caught her helmet, but the bottom sunk into the back of her scalp. She half fell, half jumped off and hit her head on the ground. I was part of the group that got ahold of the stallion and took him back to his stall. Others tended to Lisa. When I came out of the barn, the ambulance crew was wheeling Lisa away on the gurney. Right as they passed by, her chest heaved and the EMT at her head grabbed the board she was on and tipped it toward me. She vomited right at my feet.

    Her injuries turned out to be superficial; just a cut and a concussion. But she didn’t return to the barn. She wasn’t much of a rider. She probably hung up her saddle after this.

    The stallion never did anything like that again as far as I know.

    That was the last I ever saw of her–getting wheeled away covered in vomit and blood.

  18. Robert
    Posted August 17, 2008 at 2:01 pm | Permalink

    Bill Stevens: I guess that was essentially the same response Edwards had to her. That Lisa/Rielle must really have it goin’ on. She must have some strange energy about her in person, because her pictures don’t seem to show it.

    publius: I can’t argue with you on that one.

    OEC: I’m with you. Now what?

  19. Robert
    Posted September 26, 2009 at 10:07 am | Permalink

    My humiliation never ends…

    Now it appears that several of the Edwards campaign staffers are claiming that they had a plan to sabotage the Edwards campaign from the inside. They are saying it was because of the affair rumors, but I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Either way, I am even more humiliated now not having been brought in on that whole thing if it was actually on.

    from ABC News:

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/05/edwards-staff-h.html

    “Edwards Staff Had Affair ‘Doomsday’ Strategy

    During our Roundtable discussion on “This Week” we discussed Elizabeth Edwards’ candid interview with Oprah about her husband’s affair.

    ABC contributor George Will suggested former Sen. John Edwards was irresponsible to campaign for the Democratic Party nomination.

    “Think about what a tragedy it would have been if he had won?” Will said.

    I’ve talked to a lot of former Edwards staffers about this. Up until December of 2007, most on Edwards’ staff didn’t believe rumors about the affair.

    But by late December, early January of last year, several people in his inner circle began to think the rumors were true.

    Several of them had gotten together and devised a “doomsday” strategy of sorts.

    Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards’ staffers have told me.

    They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.

    –George Stephanopoulos”

  20. Robert
    Posted January 21, 2010 at 8:31 pm | Permalink

    So today, John Edwards became the last person in the country to acknowledge he is the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby.

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/01/john-edwards-admits-paternity.html

  21. Posted January 21, 2010 at 10:37 pm | Permalink

    He’s pathetic. I can’t believe that I was going to vote for him.

  22. Meta
    Posted March 3, 2010 at 4:35 pm | Permalink

    Word is that an Edwards indictment might be forthcoming.

    http://gawker.com/5484801/john-edwards-will-probably-be-indicted

  23. Meta
    Posted March 22, 2012 at 11:36 am | Permalink

    He also allegedly used hookers.

    http://gawker.com/5895495/john-edwards-was-reportedly-a-client-of-high+end-new-york-hooker-service

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