Elizabeth Edwards Calls Husband's Mistress 'Pathetic'

May 1, 2009 — -- In a new memoir, Elizabeth Edwards lashes out at Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom her husband had an affair. She calls Hunter's life "pathetic," and she also says her husband, former South Carolina Sen. John Edwards, should not have entered the 2008 presidential race.

Elizabeth Edwards has barely been seen publicly since last summer, when news of the affair broke, but that will soon change.

Her book, titled "Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts Facing Life's Adversities," was originally due to hit shelves May 12. But the publisher, Broadway Books, has moved up the release date to next week, because excerpts have been leaked to the press.

Edwards is scheduled to appear on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Thursday to talk about the book and how she is doing physically after her bout with breast cancer.

In the book, Edwards reveals that she vomited when her husband first told her about the affair in December 2006, days after he announced his presidential candidacy.

"I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up," Edwards writes, according to the New York Daily News, which obtained an advance copy of the book.

According to the Daily News, Edwards suggested that Hunter, a video producer who worked for her husband's campaign, seduced John Edwards with the pickup line, "You're so hot."

Edwards apparently does not address the issue of whofathered Hunter's now 1-year-old daughter. John Edwards has said both he and Elizabeth know that he is not the father. Hunter, now 45, was paid $114,000 for producing a batch of short films for the campaign.

John Edwards first publicly admitted the affair in an August 2008 interview with ABC News' Bob Woodruff.

"It was a huge judgment, mistake in judgment. But yeah, I didn't think anyone would ever know about it. I didn't," Edwards said in the interview.

He also described coming clean to his wife. "She had to know it, and it was painful for her. Hard and painful for her, but she responded exactly like the kind of woman she is. And then she forgave me and we went to work on it."

Elizabeth Edwards' account, however, is a little messier. She says in the book that when her husband first admitted the adultery he "left most of the truth out," and said it was a one-time fling.