Mirthala Salinas speaks: ‘I regret hurting people’

The television reporter who left her job following a romantic relationship with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told a magazine that she sees the affair as a “learning experience” – and had no idea it would have such a big impact.

In an interview with Los Angeles magazine set to appear on its website Thursday, Mirthala Salinas offered an apology for her actions and revealed that she reached a “legal settlement” with Telemundo KVEA-TV Channel 52 when she quit her job last year as a newscaster.

Salinas did not say whether Telemundo paid her to leave. And she had no comment on Corina Villaraigosa, who filed papers seeking a divorce from the mayor weeks before the affair went public.

“I regret hurting people,” said Salinas, who now co-hosts the Los Angeles talk radio show “Hoy Por Hoy” on W Radio XETRA 690-AM. “But I think that we should learn from every experience. That’s what makes us better human beings… . ”

Salinas, who has not answered previous requests for interviews, did not immediately respond to a call left at her radio station. The magazine article, a copy of which was made available to The Times, said she is now engaged to marry a real estate agent.

Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo had no comment, saying the mayor’s office had not read the magazine article.

Villaraigosa announced last June that he was ending his 20-year marriage. Weeks later, he confirmed that he had been engaged in an affair with Salinas, who as a political reporter had covered such mayoral initiatives as his effort to gain control of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The revelations about the extramarital affair created a firestorm of publicity that followed the mayor for weeks. The mayor said the experience also hurt his standing in private opinion polls.

The experience also harmed Salinas, who was reassigned by Telemundo to the station’s Riverside bureau. Salinas did not want to go. “It was a matter of dignity,” she said in her interview.

In other remarks to the magazine, Salinas said her friendship with Villaraigosa became a romance in March 2007, two months after the death of her mother. Salinas said her friends encouraged her to take a chance with the mayor.

“I felt special,” Salinas told the magazine. “OK, putting the whole world aside, the media scrutiny, the people hurt, I felt special. It was a beautiful feeling.”

david.zahniser@latimes.com