SHE'S the woman the New York Post calls a "Bible Belt bad girl", a politics student who likes polar bears, President Obama and pink hair extensions.
For several months, 23-year-old Illinois college student Sydney Leathers also thought she liked – or rather loved – Anthony Weiner, the politician campaigning to be New York's next mayor.
The pair began exchanging sexually explicit text messages and photographs, despite the fact it was out-of-control 'sexting' that had caused the former congressman's humiliating fall from grace a year earlier.
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Now Leathers has gone public, telling American TV programme Inside Edition she's disgusted by the twice-disgraced politician who sometimes used the psuedonym Carlos Danger to send her salacious messages and photographs.
"Anthony Weiner is responsible for his downfall," said Leathers, who is studying political science at university."I feel sick about it. I'm disgusted by him. He is not who I thought he was."
Asked by Inside Edition presenter Jim Moret if she thought 48-year-old Weiner was a "dirty old man", Leathers said it was a description Weiner had applied to himself.
"He actually said that about himself to me," she said. "The exact wording is that he is an argumentative, perpetually horny middle-aged man."
Leathers said her online relationship with Weiner began in June 2011 when he resigned from Congress in disgrace after sending photographs of his penis to women he barely knew. Leathers sent him a message on Facebook criticising his behaviour, but received no reply.
A year later, in July 2012, the former congressman 'poked' her on Facebook – the social media site's version of saying 'hello'. At first, the conversation was mainly about Leathers's political blog, but she says it quickly turned sexual at his instigation.
In one message he writes: "What are you wearing? Much for me to take off? I'd hold u by the throat."
Leathers says the relationship was a "fantasy" for both of them. At one point she sent him a message that said: "I basically worship the ground you walk on. You're incredible."
The last time Leathers spoke to Weiner was four months ago when he announced he was running in New York's mayoral election. He sent her a text that said: "Do me a solid. Can you hard delete all our chats here."
Leathers says she feels sorry for Weiner's long-suffering wife, Huma Abedin, and would like to apologise to her. "I just feel very, very sorry for my part and the pain that she obviously feels," she told Moret.
