For 31 years Donna Rice Hughes has refused to detail her part in the alleged affair with former Sen. Gary Hart that, once revealed, doomed his 1988 presidential bid.
But with the release of a movie about the senator, “The Front Runner,” she’s finally giving in to calls for her side and has started on a memoir.
“The Front Runner is Senator Hart’s story, not mine,” said Hughes, a celebrated battler of online sexual exploitation of children through her Enough is Enough group. “I am now at a point in my life where I believe it is the right time to share my life’s journey, in my words and in my way,” she said.
Rice said in a statement that her “trauma” began where the movie ended and when the Hart campaign released her name.
“The film ends where the trauma in my life began, after my name was released to the press by the Hart campaign. The ensuing feeding frenzy was driven by the mainstream media, who, for the first time in the 24/7 news era, went both feral and viral,” she said of the coverage.
When reports broke about the scandal in 1987, she denied the initial innuendo accusations and said there was no sexual relationship.
Explaining her decision to finally write a memoir, she said:
