Donna Rice

American news figure, a pharmaceutical company sales representative and part-time actress in Miami in May, 1987 when the news story broke about her Bahamas pleasure cruise with Colorado Senator Gary Hart aboard his yacht, Monkey Business. Except for an interview with Barbara Walters, she never spoke publicly of the affair but dropped out of sight. She resigned her job, her TV commercials were cancelled and she was defamed as a bimbo for fooling around with the married Senator. Offered seven-figure amounts for interviews, she refused; she never made money from the scandal. Though Hart was in the primaries, his hopes for a presidential bid sank like the boat's anchor. Rice faced her loss of position as a spiritual crossroads. She struggled through periods of depression and entered a spiritual twelve-step program about dependency and weakness. Changing her line of work, she began the business of distributing a nutrition product. Spurning commercial offers that came from her notoriety, she did charity work for Human Rights groups. On 5/07/1994 she married Washington DC resident Jack Hughes at Monmouth Plantation, Natchez, TN. Link to Wikipedia biography