( CNN ) -- Jill Kelley was clearly conflicted as she sat down with me in a downtown Washington office to tell her story for the first time . There was so much the Tampa socialite wanted to say about being sucked into the vortex of the Gen. David Petraeus scandal , about how she was really just good friends with another top general , John Allen , and about what she sees as the media 's unfair treatment of her . If you recall , the scandal forced Petraeus to resign from his post as CIA director after the FBI , in reading e-mails sent to Kelley , found he had had an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell . Kelley played another role in the scandal after the FBI investigated whether Allen , the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan , sent her inappropriate messages . In talking to me , she sensed she needed to be cautious . There were long pauses as she weighed her words , questions she refused to answer . She is not accustomed to dealing with the media and feels badly burned . Watch : Have the media unfairly tarnished Jill Kelley ? When I walked in for the exclusive sit-down for The Daily Beast , I realized I knew her face well , having seen the images replayed thousands of times . But how much did any of us really know about Kelley ? Already , some snark artists are accusing me of writing a `` favorable '' piece . My view is that , having been painted as the Other Other Woman in a military sex scandal , Kelley deserves the chance to tell her side of the story . Watch : Backstage at the inaugural ball , Obama 's unsung army . And I circle back to this question : What , exactly , did she do to deserve this ? There 's no evidence the married mother of three had an affair with anyone , unlike Paula Broadwell , whose romantic liaison with Petraeus led to his downfall as CIA director . I ca n't vouch for everything Kelley told me . She would n't show me the e-mails that she received anonymously from Broadwell , which Kelley described as threatening . But she did say she was `` terrified '' and believed she had no choice but to contact the FBI . ( Federal prosecutors have declined to bring charges against Broadwell over the matter ) . Watch : The media 's failure on the Manti Te ' o hoax . Nor did Kelley show me any of the e-mails she sent to Allen . We have only her word that they were merely friendly , rather than sexy or flirtatious , as some unnamed government officials have claimed . But Kelley sent and received those messages on a Yahoo account she shares with her husband , as she has no separate e-mail address . That should tell us something . She even says Allen 's wife was copied on many of the notes . Oh , and she says there were n't 30,000 of them . Not even close . A few hundred , maybe . To some extent , Kelley bears the blame for the unflattering media portrait of her because she remained silent for nearly three months . I think she understands that now . Watch : Obama 's digital guru talks about unplugging from the Net . But when she told me how dozens of paparazzi ruined her daughter 's seventh birthday party by invading her front lawn , I felt embarrassed for the profession . Even as a sideshow to the Petraeus fiasco , the Jill Kelley saga was a legitimate story , with two top generals coming under scrutiny . But after spending a couple of hours with her , I ca n't say we handled it terribly well . The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz .
Howard Kurtz : Jill Kelley spoke out for the first time about the Petraeus scandal . Kelley , cast as the ` ` Other Other Woman , '' felt badly burned by the media , he says . Kurtz says there was no evidence that Kelley had an affair with anyone . Kurtz : Jill Kelley , thrown into danger of scandal , deserves to tell her story .