NEW YORK -- Rita Jenrette, who claims she posed nude for Playboy magazine because she needed the money, said today those who criticized her for it 'haven't walked in my shoes.'
Mrs. Jenrette, estranged wife of former Rep. John Jenrette, D-S.C., said in an interview on ABC's 'Good Morning America' that congressional wives have not criticized her because they know what life is like on Capitol Hill.
Mrs. Jenrette, who has filed for divorce from her husband, scheduled a news conference in Washington later today to continue publicizing her Playboy appearance.
'Well, I'm going to tell all those people who are very critical of me, they haven't walked in my shoes,' she said. 'They haven't found their husband, not one time, but maybe 10 times in the arms of another woman. They haven't walked that mile, so they can't criticize me.
'You don't hear congressional spouses criticizing me,' she said. 'You don't hear Joan Kennedy (wife of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.) criticizing me or Joy Baker (wife of Senate Repubican leader Howard Baker) or people who have been down my road. No, sir. They wouldn't, because they know what I'm saying is true.'
Mrs. Jenrette said congressional wives 'go through a series of really degrading experiences' and are 'trotted out during the campaign and look like Barbie (dolls) ... and then go back and wear Red Cross bandages in off years.
Jenrette lost his seat in Congress last year after being convicted in the Abscam investigation.
Mrs. Jenrette expects the 12-page layout in Playboy magazine, plus her revealing article about life as a lawmaker's wife, will give her new career as a singer a boost. She held a news conference Monday at Manhattan's 21 Club that coincided with her debut in the magazine.
She has written a book about her experiences that will be published next month.
Mrs. Jenrette said Monday her husband jokingly suggested she pose nude for Playboy when she was speaking to a representative of the magazine about the article she was writing. She told Tom Snyder, host of the Tomorrow Show, she vowed, 'I will not take off one shred of clothing.'
But her stepdaughter's tuition at a private school in Charleston had to be paid. Jenrette's Abscam appeal was going to cost $1,000 a day.
'I was the bread-winner,' she said. Mrs. Jenrette refused to name the amount she was paid, saying only that it was twice as much as Bo Derek got.
'I'll never pose that way again,' she said. 'But I don't regret it.'
In the magazine spread, she lolls on a fur rug in little more than lacy, black stockings and a satin garter belt. 'The female body is not an ugly thing at all,' she said. 'I'm a feminist by my own standards. I'm not trying to please anybody else.'
Earlier Monday, Mrs. Jenrette said on ABC's 'Good Morning America' that a Republican senator paid for the abortion of a woman lobbyist, which she called the 'height of hypocrisy,' because he voted against federal aid to abortion.
The same woman lobbyist intends to make public videotapes of herself having sex with various prominent Republicans, she said.
Mrs. Jenrette said she herself had been propositioned by high ranking members of the Carter administration while in Washington, but feared she would be 'bumped off' if she revealed who they were.
