Edwards admits to affair, denies fathering child

WASHINGTON: Former US Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has admitted to an extramarital affair while his wife was battling cancer. He denied fathering the woman's daughter.

Edwards told ABC News yesterday that he lied repeatedly about the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter but said that he did not love her. He said he has not taken a paternity test but knows he is not the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.

A former Edwards campaign staffer claims he is the father, not Edwards. Hunter's daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, was born on Feb. 27, 2008, and no father's name is given on the birth certificate filed in California.

The National Enquirer first reported on the affair in October 2007, and Edwards denied it.

"The story is false," he told reporters. "It's completely untrue, ridiculous." He professed his love for his wife, Elizabeth, who had an incurable form of cancer, saying, "I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false."

Last month, the Enquirer carried another story stating that its reporters had accosted Edwards in a Los Angeles hotel where he had met with Hunter after her child's birth. Edwards called it "tabloid trash," but he generally avoided reporters' inquiries, as did his former top aides.

In the interview, scheduled to air on ABC News' "Nightline," Edwards said the tabloid was correct when it reported on his meeting with Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hotel last month.