A family spokesperson for John Edwards tells The Daily Beast that the disgraced presidential campaign drop-out has not proposed marriage to his once secret mistress.

“I can tell you that it’s not true,” the person close to the Edwards family told the Daily Beast. Could the story have come from Rielle Hunter, mother to Edwards youngest child and once new-Mrs.-Edwards-hopeful? “I have no idea where it’s coming from. I wouldn’t begin to speculate about the Enquirer’s sources.”

Editor of the tabloid that originally reported the engagement says he stands by his paper’s story on the engagement, a familiar echo of the gossip tabloid’s response to the  Edwards family when they claimed reports of John Edwards’ infidelity were not true.

Like I said earlier today, if the two are in a long-term committed relationship, there’s no need to go to the trouble of making it legal. While a wedding might fulfill some kind fantasy for the two, it would also put the two, their daughter, and Edwards’ children with his recently deceased wife Elizabeth into a less than warm spotlight. Madeline Holler