NEW YORK — Peter Cook says he regrets his affair with a teenage lover, which sparked the end of his 10-year marriage to Christie Brinkley.
On Sunday, the 49-year-old Cook told the Fox News Channel that if he had to do it all over again, he'd tell his young lover Diana Bianchi: "No, I'm a married man."
"Of course I am [regretful]," Cook said. "How could I not be?"
Explosive details of Cook's affair with his then 18-year-old assistant kicked off the opening day of the architect's recent divorce trial with Brinkley. Cook testified that he hired Bianchi in March 2005 after meeting her at a toy store earlier in the year. Bianchi was paid $20,000 to type magazine articles onto his company's Web site and their affair began soon after she was hired. Cook also admitted to leaving her occasional cash payments, including one time when he left her $500 underneath a rock.
Cook and Bianchi had sex in the office and at homes owned by Brinkley before the affair ended later the same year.
"In his office he asked me how I would feel if he told me that he was attracted to me and that's really how it all started," Bianchi said under oath, according to the New York Post.
"I think I was a little taken aback, but I wasn't against it either really," she added. "I wouldn't say that one of us pushed the other. I would say that it was a mutual thing."
Cook told the court that he paid Bianchi $300,000 in May 2007, with the intention of keeping the affair quiet. The payment came after the affair had already ended.
At one point during his testimony, Cook read an e-mail that he had sent to Bianchi.
"I don't know, you put me under your spell," he said, according to the Post. "You never asked me, but I left you money anyway."
Brinkley eventually found out about the affair from Bianchi's stepfather, Brian Platt.
Details of Cook's interest in Internet porn were also revealed during the trial, a habit that amounted to $3,000 a month.
Cook and Brinkley's trial ended last Thursday after a week of testimony, with the 54-year-old former "Sports Illustrated" model receiving sole custody of the ex-couple's two children, Jack, 13, and Sailor, 10, in addition to keeping their real estate assets. As part of the deal, Brinkley agreed to pay Cook $2.1 million.
"I was fighting for my family," Brinkley told the Post. "I think when you're fighting for your family's well-being, almost anything you have to go through is worth it."
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