10th
How Rumors Get Started
So. Right after I left Gawker last September, but before they cut off my access to tips@gawker (heh), we got an anonymous tip that John Edwards was cheating on his wife. This is what the email said:
John Edwards is cheating on his wife.
This news must be revealed.
There was a blind item in Page Six recently… however:
My sources come from inside J.E’s little production group that was following him around to create “webisodes.”
There is a producer girl in that group (who lives in NYC) who John E. was - obvious to all - “close to.”
Mrs. Edwards was calling around in the group of production types - to try to get the number of this girl. (Perhaps to try to put a stop to the shenanigans.)
I could tell you my source but I don’t want to rat her out. She’s in that circle. She was there two times when Mrs. Edwards called.
I knew of this long before I saw the recent blind item in the post. (Page 6).
Therefore people know about it, and therefore you have a story to expose…
I was like… whoa. Then I found the Page Six item, which had run a couple weeks before, which said:
WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he’ll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture.
It seemed like this was one of those Rumors About Politicians that was sort of known before it came out; I remember having a conversation with a friend who was covering New Jersey politics before all the McGreevey stuff came out who was like, “Yeah, everyone sort of knows, but like, what are we going to do? It’s sort of delicate…” And I wonder how many people knew about Spitzer before everything blew up…
That being said, a presidential candidate having an affair is a little different. It’s crazy to me that it took this long for all this stuff to come out. Especially that it didn’t come out during primary season. It’s still shocking to me that this guy SERIOUSLY would have taken the Democratic nomination if he had won it. What a douche.
