Barack Obama’s pastor Wright has affair

Jeremiah Wright, the firebrand pastor and former intimate of Barack Obama – the pair fell out when footage of Wright emerged damning America – is in the news again. On the front page of today's New York Post, he is accused of having an affair with one Elizabeth Payne (pictured), a 37-year old church worker, who has told the newspaper this was the reason for the eventual breakdown of her marriage.

Payne claims she and Wright, who christened Obama's children and presided over his marriage to Michelle, began their relationship while she was an executive assistant at a Dallas church headed by one of Wright’s proteges. When their relationship became known, her husband decided to terminate their marriage.

Payne, who refuses to reveal when the adulterous affair started or how she met Wright, says: “It's all true. I was involved with Rev.”

However, Payne's husband, Fred Payne, 64, who works "in the oil and gas business" and who belongs to a hunting club and makes his own bullets, is more open. He says he learned of the affair in late February when he discovered emails between his wife and Wright. "There must have been about 80 of them, back and forth," he said. "Wright said things like he was going to leave his wife for Elizabeth."

After discovering the relationship, Payne, who had married Elizabeth in October 2006, asked for a divorce. "I was downright mad about this bullshit," said Payne. "People wouldn’t be happy to know that my wife was sleeping with a black man."