Tiger Woods' mistress says sorry

SMH.COM.AU

One of Tiger Woods' mistresses has appeared on US television to apologise to the golf star's wife, Elin Nordegren.

Jaimee Grubbs told Extra's Lauren Sanchez: "I couldn't describe how remorseful that I am to have hurt her family and her emotionally."

Grubbs, 24, who says she got intimate with the golfer 20 times over about three years, said: "If it wasn't me, it was going to be other girls.

"I did care about him - I didn't do it for superficial reasons. I didn't do it to purposely hurt her."

She stopped short of saying they were in love.

"Love is obviously a very strong word for me to even use," she said. "I wouldn't necessarily say that I didn't love him. But I couldn't ... I did never say that I did love him. I didn't let myself get that far."

Grubbs said Woods and Nordegren should "try to work" out their relationship.

"He's an amazing guy despite everything that is coming forth," she said of Woods, who has been linked to 11 women.

Grubbs said she wasn't sure she'd be intimate with Woods again if he and Nordegren split up.

"I can't say that I would ever go back to him. I would definitely have a relationship with him whether it was friends or just to have him in my life," she said.

"But as far as going back to him emotionally like I was - I don't know if I can put myself through that again."

Grubbs said Woods "never mentioned his wife" when they were together.

"I wouldn't have pursued him if he didn't pursue me. I mean, when he did, I just figured he was single and I didn't think to ask," she said.

By the time she learnt he was married, they were "already in a relationship", she said.

"I knew we had a respect between the both of us, that we cared deeply for each other and we did very much trust each other.

"But the words were never there. Nothing about the relationship was fake that I felt."

Grubbs described her first kiss with Woods, whom she met in Las Vegas when she was just 20. It wasn't until the morning after they met.

"We were sitting to eat and we were play fighting and we had our first kiss," she said. "It was very gentle, very sweet. It wasn't quick, but it wasn't a make-out session or anything like that. It was very respectable."

She said she kept their "intimate relationship ... very sacred. It was something between the two of us that I did grow to love very much".

Even when they weren't in the same town, "we very much had a relationship", Grubbs said.

"We did talk very often, we did talk about my jobs or whatever it may be. He was always interested in how my life was going and every holiday he would say, 'I hope you have fun with your family and I hope things are going well.'

Grubbs said she was last with Woods on October 18 - about a month before his controversial November 27 car crash.

She said Woods made her "feel like I was the only girl, so to go back and see specifically now when there's more and it's really hard".

She explained that she felt the need to come forward with her story after hearing she wasn't Woods's only woman.

"Seeing that was devastating. It hurts," she said, adding that they were "done" as soon as she found out.

Hearing about Rachel Uchitel - whom she calls "very similar to, very social, very outgoing" - "hurt" the most, she says.

What would she say to Woods if she had the opportunity?

"I would tell him that no part of our relationship was fake and I cared for him. It would hurt the way he made me feel [because] he was doing that with other women and I am sorry that everything is coming out and happening the way it did, but I needed to get everything off my chest.

"I've learnt from everything that I did. Had I not acted on emotion, I probably would have taken a second to think of how it was going to affect my family and the impact it was going to have not on my life, but on everybody that's been involved in this," she said.