The woman in the middle of Tiger Woods’ cheating scandal is telling her side of the story.
On Sunday night, HBO aired the second part of the documentary “Tiger”, and in it, Rachel Uchitel addresses the revelation in 2009 of her affair with the golf legend.
“For the last 10 years, I have stayed quiet about this story, but at this point I have nothing left to lose,” she said. “My name hasn’t lost the stigma at all, it’s always been, ‘Rachel Uchitel, Tiger Woods’ mistress.'”
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Uchitel explained how they met in New York: “One night I was working at the club and I saw Tiger sipping his drink, talking to nobody.
“As I went to leave, he took my phone number and the car probably hadn’t even gotten to the light at the corner, he started texting me. He said something like, ‘When can I see you again?’ It was intimidating, this was Tiger Woods. I knew he was married, I knew he had responsibilities. He said, ‘I want you to fly to Orlando and I’ll come see you there.'”
Uchitel also recalled talking to Woods’ wife Elin to convince her that the tabloid story revealing the affair was “garbage.”
“We had an extensive, 30-minute conversation, Elin and I, convincing her that I was not having a sexual relationship with Tiger,” Uchitel said. “We talked about how I knew Tiger, how I knew his friends, how and why I was in Australia. The story came out and nobody looked at it. Between the stupid story and phone call with Elin, I remember thinking, Oh my God, we’re gonna fly right over this.”
A few days later, things came to a head when she got a call from Woods’ number that blew everything up.
“I answered saying something like, ‘Hey babe, I thought you went to sleep,'” she said. “And instead of Tiger’s voice, it was Elin and she said, ‘I knew it was you.'”
Looking back on the fallout, Uchitel said, “This story was so huge, that was the end of my life as I knew it. There now were probably 45-50 paparazzi outside my apartment telling me I was a homewrecker, I was a whore, saying, ‘I hope you get AIDS and die.’
“I regret that he was married and I regret the mistakes that I made, but people came at me like they wanted to blame me for the fact that a married man cheated on his wife. It was like I was the only one that was responsible for Tiger’s action. My name was getting dragged through the mud.”
