For those of us unfamiliar with how extra-marital affairs with prominent politicians work (not bragging, just saying), GQ provides a nice primer by way of Rielle Hunter. Hunter, you’ll recall, is the videographer who made onetime presidential candidate John Edwards weak in the knees/morals/matrimonial bonds and, long story short, had his baby.

Hunter was portrayed in the press as a gold-digging celebrity worshipper and she works hard in her interview with Lisa DePaulo to explain her relationship with “Johnny” and convince readers of their transcendent, inevitable love for one another.

Problem is, she goes and poses pantless on a toddler bed next to an oversized Dora the Explorer doll. And she’s back to creeping us out.

Still, a few nuggets, such as the fact that John Edwards doesn’t like their daughter’s name, how Hunter is like many other single moms and, oh, this whole thing is really all Elizabeth’s fault.

From GQ:

And how did you name her?
Well, her name is Frances Quinn Hunter, and I love the name Frances. Johnny wasn’t over the moon about Frances. So I was coming up with names, and Quinn is a name that I loved, and that was the only name that he thought was cool. And so I named her Quinn because Daddy really liked it.

Did he buy you any houses that you aren’t living in yet?
It’s my understanding that he and Elizabeth, before they separated, bought a house in Charlotte that they apparently thought would be a good place for Quinn to live. They wanted to rent it to us, and I couldn’t afford it. We do not live in the house, nor do we have any plans to move into it.

How do you support yourself now?
Johnny’s been helping a little bit. But you know, I need to work. [laughs] Because we reached an agreement, and child support is child support. So Johnny had been helping. But now I know what Quinn is getting, and I need to work.

Hunter is big into new-agey talk — even saying Johnny’s run for presidency was astrologically ill-advised — and says Edwards lied about her and the baby because he had been traumatized for so long. By his wife Elizabeth.

So how does she know he wasn’t lying to her when he said he loved her, when he said he cared?

Because he doesn’t have to worry about the repercussions?
He’s not afraid of me. He’ll tell me anything and everything. Even disclosing to me when women hit on him, and everything that was said, and if he flirted. He has no fear that I’m going to abuse him. And I believe what happened in his marriage is, he could not go to his wife and say, “We have an issue.” Because he would be pummeled. So he had a huge fear. Most of his mistakes or errors in judgment were because of his fear of the wrath of Elizabeth. He’s allowed himself to be pushed into a lot of things that he wouldn’t normally do because of Elizabeth’s story line. And the spin that she wants to put out there. He was emasculated. And you know, the wrath of Elizabeth is a mighty wrath. so set the record straight, including contradicting Elizabeth Edwards’ account of the affair in her recent memoir.

She even says she’s got a great defense of the sex tape, which she’s not at liberty to discuss since it’s the subject of a lawsuit. But it’ll come out in court, she says.

The Washington Post‘s Reliable Source blog, which reported on this interview before it went live, questions the connection between interviewer DePaulo, who had once been a ghost-writer for Andrew Young, the aide who, Hunter says, was so in love with Edwards that he told the press he was the father of Hunter’s baby in hopes of shielding the candidate from the scandal.

Also, some good news for those who had to stop listening to the Dave Matthews Band after Young claimed they were a promised part of Hunter’s fantasy wedding plans: totally false, Hunter tells us, totally false.

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