Brinkley Ex Exclusive: Affair 'Was My Failing'

Oct. 10, 2008 — -- Former supermodel Christie Brinkley's ex-husband said he "failed as a human being" by being unfaithful in the marriage.

"It was my failing," Peter Cook told Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview. "I was a great father, a great husband, and I failed as a human being. I failed myself. Christie is mad at me, she's entitled to be mad at me; I'm an idiot, I made a mistake."

In his first interview since his bitter public divorce from Brinkley this summer, Cook told Walters that "I felt like I was a guest in someone else's life" and said he had an affair with a teenager because he was "seeking a connection I could not find in my own marriage."

A newfound connection came about while shopping for toys just before Christmas in 2004, when Cook met 17-year-old sales girl Diana Bianchi. The following spring he offered her a job. Cook told Walters the affair began "very shortly thereafter."

"There was a mutual attraction, flirting," he said. "One thing led to another. And, the affair began."

Speaking about the affair, Cook said, "Well, where [we had sex] is ... is widely known. In homes that, um, my wife and I owned. Vacant homes that we owned."

Cook candidly told Walters about what went wrong: his affair with a teenager and the $300,000 payout to her; his reported $3,000-a-month Internet pornography addiction; and why he was willing to have his dirtiest secrets revealed in the fight over access to the couple's children after the divorce.

In a statement sent to ABC News Wednesday, Brinkley's lawyer, Robert Stephan Cohen, said on behalf of the supermodel: "It is a measure of Peter Cook's character that he has breached the confidentiality agreement that is in the divorce settlement and has sought to present this distorted one-sided view of his marriage. Mr. Cook had his days in court, testified on his own behalf and ultimately agreed with the view of the children's court appointed attorney and psychiatrist that the children should live principally with their mother and that she should be the sole custodial parent."