Tiger Woods' Alleged Jumpoff: 'I Don't Care About His Wife. We're In Love!'

PR-wise, it's not a good week for pro-golfer Tiger Woods.

The National Enquirer has alleged in its exclusive report that Tiger is cheating on Elin Nordegren, his wife of five years, with 34-year-old NYC event planner Rachel Uchitel (pictured, right).

To get the story, the Enquirer followed Tiger and Rachel for months (across the country and to Australia!) and two of Rachel's friends sold their stories (for $25,000 a piece) to the tabloid. The friends, who passed lie detector tests, say Rachel met Tiger in NYC last May at a nightclub. She gave him her cell phone number.

"I'm sure Tiger thinks Rachel is staying quiet about their affair, but she's told lots of people," Ashley Simpson, a close friend of Rachel told the Enquirer. "Rachel told me, 'I'm having an affair with Tiger Woods, We're in love.' I've heard him while she was talking to him, and recognized his voice. They kept saying stuff like, 'I miss you so much! I love you.' She even read me text messages that Tiger sent her that said, 'I love you, babe. It's always going to be just you and me.' The first time I heard about Tiger from Rachel was when she got a phone call and said 'Oh, it's Tiger, I've got to take this.' I asked, 'Tiger?' She said, 'Tiger Woods.' Over the next few days, she got several phone calls from him, and I recognized his voice. It's very distinctive. Finally, Rachel told me they were having an affair. I'm still shocked that she's be so casual about an affair that could break up Tiger's family. It's crazy."

Another of Rachel's friends was eager to talk, too.

She said Rachel and Tiger "were constantly 'sexting.' Tiger was asking things like, 'What are you wearing? What do you want to do to me? What do you want me to do to you?' I said, 'Rachel, he's married,' and she said 'Big fucking deal! It's Tiger Woods! I Don't care about his wife. We're in love!' Her nickname for Tiger is 'Bear." She lists his cell phone number under 'Bear' in her contacts."

Earlier this month, the Enquirer followed Rachel to Australia, where she was allegedly meeting Tiger (who was in town for the Australian Masters). A reporter witnessed Rachel checking into the Crown Towers hotel and went up to the ultra posh VIP Suites housed on the 35th floor. Of course, this was the same hotel where Tiger was staying.

When the Enquirer swooped down on her in Australia, Rachel denied the affair, saying she was there on business with her boyfriend. But, she later changed her story. She told the tabloid, she wasn't there with a boyfriend and denied an affair with Tiger.

In fact, she said, "I don't want to be somebody's number two. I don't want to be with a married man."

This is something she knows well. She was dating David Boreanaz, the married star of the TV show "Bones" while his wife was pregnant.

Now her friends say Rachel's given up other men and is dating Tiger exclusively.

"Rachel says she's strictly a one-man woman with Tiger," the source said. "She told me 'I'm dating Tiger Woods! How could I ever date another mere mortal guy? She told me that Tiger said to her 'I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up to you every morning.' When Rachel told him, 'You can't - you have a wife and two kids,' he said, 'I'll fix that."

What?!

"I know for a fact that Tiger and Rachel got together in Los Angeles," the other friend told the Enquirer. "She thinks Tiger is going to leave his wife and marry her. She talks about their affair all the time. She told me, 'Tiger and I have a special connection. We want to be together forever.'"

Drama!


For the record: Rachel has further denied the Enquirer's story.

In an interview with Blackbook magazine, she said.

“I don’t appreciate my name or what people think of me being dragged through the mud by people who don’t even bother to research what or who they’re talking about ... they should research who these stories are coming from, who they’re believing as a credible source. Not to mention that it’s in the National Enquirer....I totally deny the Enquirer story. They did contact me about it, but they didn’t use any of my quotes or any of the information I gave them. They make it sound like I said those things, but it’s all other people saying I said things.”

On the story’s report that she followed Woods to Australia and was observed checking into his hotel and riding the elevator to the 35th floor, where Tiger had a suite:
“There’s just no possible way I could have done that. You can’t just walk into a place like that and ride the elevator to a floor with someone like Tiger Woods on it without someone seeing you and stopping you.”

On allegedly sending racy text messages to Tiger:
“If you talked to any of my old boyfriends, and I’m sure they all hate me, but they’d all confirm that I don’t sex-message. I don’t do it, I don’t know how to do it.”

On Ashley Samson, the “close friend” who provided all the information to the Enquirer, along with another unnamed source:

“I’ve met her twice in my life. We’re not friends. I’m just speculating but it seems like someone else is telling her what to say or manipulating her. After all, she got $25,000 for this.”


Also, for the record: The Enquirer stands by its story. Appearing on Geraldo at Large last weekend, the tabloid's Executive Editor, Kim Guilfoyle, said Rachel is a liar who is ashamed she got caught.

"The bottom line is we pay, you know, the National Enquirer we pay exclusive information that we can verify and check out," Kim said. "This is a story that took us several weeks, took us halfway around the world. We had reporters in Australia, we followed this woman from New York to Australia for her last meeting with Tiger Woods. There are multiple sources, some of which are used in the current story, polygraphs were administered to several of the sources, all of the sources passed with flying colors. I can point out, there is an exclusive on the record interview with one of Rachel’s friends who is named in the article. Obviously Rachel has gone into a damage control mode certainly it has been ramped up because the accident. I can certainly see from where I hear this is a woman who is scared who has been caught up in a scandal now of global proportion and in the past 24 hours she has given several interviews to media outlets. However, there have been several contradictions and outright lies that she as told."



Source: National Enquirer, Dec. 7, print edition, source 2