The Inevitable John Edwards and Rielle Hunter Breakup Has Finally Come

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The couple that many would say never should have been is no longer. John Edwards and Rielle Hunter are splitsville. Over. No longer "Johnny" and Rielle, holding hands, gallivanting through fields of daisies, starry-eyed and struck with the wonders of young or middle-aged cheatin' love.

Anyway, yes. As sad as we feel about that, and if Twitter is any indication, our nation is mourning (no, not really) we knew it was coming. You even begin to wonder, don't you, how much of this was happening right in front of our eyes? 

To catch everyone up: Rielle appeared on ABC's Good Morning America Tuesday with an understanding George Stephanopoulos to talk about her relationship with John, her daughter, and her book. The bombshell detail in the interview was that they're no longer a couple: "We are a family, but as of the end of last week John Edwards and I are no longer a couple. Not at all," she told Stephanopoulos. He asks her if it's because of the book. She said, for her part, it's that she doesn't want to "hide" anymore: "I'm no longer interested in hiding, hiding our relationship, not living out. I don't know if you've noticed, but we've had a lot of media scrutiny. It's complicated and it's hard. It wears you down after a while," says the woman who wrote the tell-all about what happened. 

Hunter wouldn't say who dumped whom, and instead gives that old breakup chestnut, they decided it together. And she would "absolutely not" do it all over again, nope, not even if Stephanopoulos delivered a time machine to her doorstep. (She did not say that, but we inferred it.)

But why is this even the remotest of surprises? The breakup, the announcement, any of it? After all, Rielle is now on the media circuit, attempting to sell her tell-all book which is also being released today (without getting any media scrutiny for it, apparently). Sure helps to have a real-world peg, a human-interest story of sorts, news to go along with it. And, of course, we only just got through the John Edwards trial, during which, in discussions of his character, it was probably wise to keep silent about any impending splits with the mother of his child, Quinn, the daughter he gushed about at the strange press conference following his acquittal. Maybe they were together then, maybe they weren't, maybe this was simply the most opportune time to finally announce it. 

Either way it doesn't matter too much, because the long tale of John and Rielle is finally, according to them, over, and we can breathe a sigh of relief (or read her book, if we want) and, hopefully, wash our hands of this whole nasty business and not look back ever again. Which is what they want, too, right? To have the media finally stop caring? Maybe our own "breakup" with John and Rielle is finally here, too... though we wouldn't bet on it.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.