Rielle Hunter’s Cabal of Crazy: A Roster

Despite yesterday’s insights into her character, we really don’t know much more about filmmaker, new mom, and former party girl Rielle Hunter than we did when John Edwards admitted he had an affair with her. But we are beginning to learn about the kooky cast of characters surrounding her. Below, we’ve assembled what you need to know about these confusing fellows:

Robert Philip McGovern: McGovern is a “spiritual healer” who is a friend and former associate of Rielle Hunter, the Times reported. He arranged the fateful meeting between Edwards and Hunter in the Beverly Hills Hilton last month, where the former presidential candidate was trapped by National Enquirer photographers. To lure him there, he told Edwards that Hunter was “having some trouble.” Edwards agreed to see her if McGovern would also be present. The Times questioned whether McGovern was deliberately setting Edwards up to be caught by tabloid reporters. According to a New Age Website, McGovern “uses philosophy, psychology, and the intuitive to find resolutions that move people back into alignment with the universe and into a place of peace, harmony, and joy.” He also lives in Santa Barbara, according to neighbors, where he is active in community and political affairs. Um, yeah he is.

Melissa Druck: Melissa is Rielle’s younger sister (Hunter changed her birth name, Lisa Druck, during her spiritual transformation into a New Age enthusiast). She spoke with ABC News last week and demanded that John Edwards take a paternity test, as he pledged to do on Nightline. “Somebody must stand up and defend my sister,” she said to ABC News, about Rielle. “She is a good and honest person, the sweetest and most caring woman one could ever hope to meet.” Unfortunately, Hunter herself does not want to take the paternity test.



Pidgeon O’Brien: Aside from having the best kiddie-porn name ever, O’Brien is notable because she was one of the many friends Hunter spoke with regarding her affair with Edwards. Rielle told her that “the affair began long, long, long before she was hired to work for the campaign, almost half a year before she was hired to work on those videos,” O’Brien told ABC News. According to O’Brien, they were having sex during that time, and that’s how she got hired. This “friend” of Rielle’s can also be blamed for sharing with the world the most dreadful pet name we’ve ever heard for a presidential candidate: “love lips.”


Andrew Young: When the Enquirer first suggested that Edwards might be the father of Rielle Hunter’s unborn baby, a longtime aide to the former senator claimed that he was the father. Since 41-year-old Andrew Young is married and has young children himself, many were skeptical of this claim, arguing that he was just covering up for his political hero. Rielle’s lawyers publicly confirmed Young’s story, though a source “extremely close” to her denied it to the Enquirer. No father is listed on the birth certificate of the child, Frances Quinn. Both Hunter and Young (along with his family) were later moved to the same gated community in the Santa Barbara area by Fred Baron.



Fred Baron: Formerly the national finance chair of Edwards’s 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, retired Texas lawyer Fred Baron has gone on to assume a really sketchy role in the former candidate’s life. He has been regularly issuing $15,000-a-month payments to Rielle Hunter and paid to move the Youngs and her to the Santa Barbara compound, where she lived, until very recently, in a $3 million mansion. Baron, who founded the Texas law firm Baron & Budd and was once head of the American Trial Lawyer’s Association, swears that he did all of this without the urging or even knowledge of Edwards himself, which, let’s face it, is pretty bonkers.

And that’s not all! As we’ve discussed, she dated writer Jay McInerney (and made quite a name for herself), her former father-in-law was the district attorney in the JonBenet Ramsey case, and Fox News even reports that she knows the Dalai Lama! With friends like that, this woman was clearly destined for greatness.

Earlier: Turns Out John Edwards Isn’t the Only Person With a Crazy Rielle Hunter Story