(Thumbnail image: GQ)

John Edwards' former mistress is finally speaking out. Rielle Hunter sat down for an interview and photo shoot with GQ Magazine to tell her side of the story. But many in the media aren't sympathetic.

We're looking at perspectives from GQ, CNN, HLN, The Washington Post and ABC.

In her interview, Hunter talks about everything from how she and Edwards met, to the end of his marriage, and how he's changed.

"Everyone talks about how Johnny has fallen from grace. In reality, he's fallen to grace. He is integrated. He is living a life of truth. He has grown in awareness and humility."

CNN reports she told GQ the hardest part of the saga was when Edwards denied being the father of their now 2-year-old girl in an interview with Bob Woodruff in 2008.

Woodruff: "A report has been published that the baby of Ms. Hunter is your baby. True?"

Edwards: "Not true, not true. Published in a supermarket tabloid, but no that's absolutely not true."

REPORTER: "She says Edwards was furious about this spread in the National Enquirer."

An Entertainment Tonight correspondent tells HLN's Joy Behar why she thinks Hunter decided to speak up now.

"I think the whole reason we're talking about her now is she has decided no one is paying enough attention to her and it's her turn to talk."

A Washington Post blogger thinks the article shows Hunter is just as "loathsome" as Edwards himself and you can't trust either one of them.

"This is the woman who had an affair with a man she knew was married. This is the woman who got pregnant with his child and willingly hid in the lap of luxury so that her "very honest and truthful" "Johnny" could continue his run for the White House."

Much of the backlash is also focused on the photo shoot, which Hunter herself called "repulsive." Hunter told ABC's Barbara Walters she didn't know the photos would be so provocative, but the women of The View weren't buying it.

GOLDBERG: "I'm just curious because this interview was done for GQ Magazine and GQ is a, you know, sexy magazine for men. So it can't, it does not seem to me, that it should be as surprising as if she had just gone and..."

WALTERS: "... done a television interview."

Lisa DePaulo, who wrote the article for GQ, shot back at Hunter's reaction to the photos to ABC's Good Morning America.

"Rielle is a smart woman. She knows what she wore and what she was doing in the photo shoot."

Writer: Erika Roberts

Producer: Newsy Staff