‘Obviously I have a type.’ A year after Edwin Edwards death, Trina divulges new love interest in a candid radio interview

BATON ROUGE – It was a year ago today that Trina Edwards watched as Edwin Edwards took his last breath at 94 years old.

It was a sad moment, she told Jim Engster Tuesday morning on WRKF Radio, but she’s found happiness – and a new love – since then.

And that romantic interest fits a similar mold as the late governor: a man decades her senior who was a big-name politician. That man, former Senate President John Alario.

“Obviously I have a type,” Trina Edwards told Engster during a candid interview on his “Talk Louisiana” broadcast.

During the interview, Edwards also said she somewhat regrets exhuming Edwin’s remains and having them cremated, saying it was a decision made during an emotional time.

“In hindsight, I maybe would have done it differently,” she said. “But it is what it is, and I can’t undo it.”

What she can do, however, is chart her future. And that appears to be one with Alario at her side.

The two have been seen in public before, as is evident by Alario’s profile on his Facebook page, which shows them gripping each other and grinning, and their relationship is no secret in Louisiana political circles.

But this was, perhaps, the first time Edwards made any public reference to the relationship.

Trina Edwards said she and Edwin would often talk about her future given the decades-wide age gap between them.

“He would say, ‘I think you should marry so-and-so after I die.’ And I’d say, ‘No, he’s not my type.’ And one time I said, ‘I don’t know. What about John Alario?’ And he said, ‘Oh, no. Not him.’ And I said, ‘Why’s that?’ He said, ‘He doesn’t have any money.’ I said, ‘Well you don’t have any money. He said, ‘Oh yeah. I guess you’re right. Do what you want.’

After Edwin Edwards’s death, Trina Edwards said, her phone rang off the hook with lawyers, lobbyists and politicians hoping to get a date.

She would call Alario to ask about each possible suitor.

Alario, who is 78 and a widower, would give his thoughts, which Edwards, who is 43, said were never negative.

While Alario would field her calls to check on the background of possible dates, he eventually invited her to a football game.

She said it didn’t seem like a date. But half a year later, they’re a couple.

She said the former governor would approve of her new relationship.

“Edwin is a hard act to follow. But John keeps up pretty well,” she said.

As for the future, might she wed another senior state lawmaker?

“If he asked I would say yes,” she said.

But Trina Edwards says she has just one issue with Alario.

“I have the same problem that I had with Edwin. It’s hard for me to keep up with him.”