Drink and drugs past of former U.S. Presidential hopeful John Edwards' lover

Mr Edwards, 55, has claimed his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth forgave him when he confessed his affair with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, who worked on his unsuccessful run for the White House.

But friends of Mrs Edwards, whose illness is terminal, said she was horrified by the sordid background of the woman linked to her multi-millionaire husband.

'Whacked out': Rielle Hunter

‘It is shocking enough that he was unfaithful but that he chose this woman is completely humiliating,’ the friend said.

On a website that she set up under the title Being Is Free, Hunter confessed to being a New York party girl who found ‘spiritual’ enlightenment after moving to LA.

She wrote: ‘All desire for drugs or alcohol vanished. I became sober overnight.’

The site, which has since been deleted, also included an interview with one of her ex-lovers, novelist Jay McInerney.

John Edwards: The former US Democratic presidential candidate has admitted to having an affair while his wife was battling cancer

He revealed that Miss Hunter’s life was the inspiration for his book Story Of My Life.

‘It was narrated in the first person,’ McInerney said, ‘from the point of view of an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year-old who was, shall we say, inspired by her.’

A former friend said he met Miss Hunter at a Manhattan nightclub notorious for drugs, adding: ‘She is one of millions of other girls, not smart enough to make it as a writer, not pretty enough to model or act. She was average in every way, except for her drugs and whacked-out sense of truth.’

Hand-in-hand: John Edwards and wife Elizabeth pictured before he confessed to the affair