(Zuma Press)
John Edwards’ humiliated wife had a meltdown a day after his tawdry affair went public — hysterically taunting her husband by groping him and exposing her breasts in front of stunned campaign staffers, according to testimony yesterday in his federal campaign-finance trial.
“You don’t see me anymore!” a bare-chested Elizabeth Edwards screamed at the presidential hopeful at the height of her fury.
The confrontation came the day after the National Enquirer splashed the affair on its Oct. 9, 2007, front page — complete with a photo of mistress Rielle Hunter, testified Christina Reynolds, a campaign aide and confidante to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth — who was privately aware of the philandering — was groping and pawing at Edwards in a car heading to the Raleigh airport, testified another aide, Matthew Nelson.
“Is this what you two do in the car when you are together in New York City?” Elizabeth seethed, referring to Hunter, Nelson testified.
Several other campaign staffers were in the vehicle.
John “told her to calm down,” Nelson said.
But Elizabeth shot back, “They’re not our friends; they’re our staff!” Nelson said.
John then ordered the car to stop and jumped into another campaign vehicle. But the husband and wife dramatically met up again at the airport.
“Elizabeth was very upset. She was very vocal,” said Reynolds, who had worked for John for 10 years and later worked in President Obama’s White House.
“She stormed off and collapsed into a ball in the parking lot.”
Reynolds helped her to a restroom in a private hangar.
“She seemed a little calmer, and then stormed out of the bathroom and tried to engage Mr. Edwards,” Reynolds said.
That’s when Elizabeth — who had undergone a lumpectomy in 2005 — dramatically ripped off her clothes, haranguing him bare-chested.
Coldhearted John “didn’t have much of a reaction,” Reynolds said, adding that Elizabeth, however, was “mortified” and “humiliated” that the affair had gone public.
The gripping testimony proved too much for Cate Edwards, the couple’s eldest daughter, who has remained loyal to her father.
“I don’t know what’s coming; do you want to leave?” Edwards asked Cate before Reynolds began.
She gave an inaudible response, and then fled the courtroom wiping tears from her eyes as Edwards called after her, “Cate, Cate.”
Federal prosecutors brought up the private moment in a bid to prove that Edwards was more concerned about covering up the affair to protect his public image than about caring for his ill wife.
Elizabeth, who died of breast cancer in 2010, had told Reynolds that she knew John was cheating.
“Mr. Edwards had had an affair. He told her about it in late 2006, and she believed it might still be going on. She found a cellphone that was not his,” recalled Reynolds.
Edwards has been charged by the feds with using campaign funds to buy the silence of his mistress.
He faces 30 years in prison if convicted on all six counts.