Carla Brunik
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WW | celebrity ROCCarla BruniK Former model-turned-musician Carla Bruni has garnered strong reactions Cas France’sH First Lady – some positive,I some negative.C David Leser looks beyond the headlines at the most powerful woman in France. IT’S HARD TO KNOW where to start Never mind her label as the “new started their affair, one which was to with the First Lady of France. With the Diana” or the 21st century Jackie ultimately help steer Mick’s relationship full-length nude photograph of her published Kennedy, Carla Bruni, the Italian-born with Texan supermodel Jerry Hall onto (and later auctioned for $93,000) just prior heiress-turned-supermodel-turned pop the rocks. Carla stayed with Mick long to her dining on noisette d’agneau with the singer-turned First Lady of France, is like enough to tour with the Rolling Stones, Queen of England? With her views on something straight out of the pages of an but other “burning desires” eventually the rather quaint concept of monogamy? 18th century courtesan’s tale – beautiful, took over, including ones for American (“I’m monogamous from time to time, but highly intelligent – she used to hide her actor Kevin Costner, French actor Vincent I prefer polygamy and polyandry”). Or Dostoyevsky novels under her Elle and Perez, former French Prime Minister perhaps with her latest album, released last Vogue magazines in between fashion Laurent Fabius (now considered a practice month, just prior to Bastille Day, where shoots – fluent in three languages and, run for the presidency), and former French she sings huskily about Afghan heroin, yes, equally assured in the art of love. Education Minister Luc Ferry, who was Columbian cocaine and the 30 lovers she “Love lasts a long time, but burning to say famously, “I was between Laurent had before marrying the president of desire – two to three weeks,” she has said. Fabius and Mick Jagger”. France? I am a child despite my 40 years, When she was a 21-year-old supermodel Perhaps the relationship which was to despite my 30 lovers, a child. sharing the catwalk with Naomi Campbell cause the greatest collective raised eyebrow Okay, why beat around the bush? Let’s and Claudia Schiffer, Carla met the was in 2000, when she began living with start with the lovers. It’s not often (actually legendary guitarist, Eric Clapton, who the French publisher, Jean-Paul Enthoven, make that never in history) that you’d find believed he’d just found the love of his only to fall in love with Jean-Paul’s married Supermodel, the former bedmate of rock stars (Mick life … until he made the dreadful mistake philosopher son, Raphael, 10 years her rock singer Jagger and Eric Clapton to name but two), of taking her to a Rolling Stones concert. junior. The couple went on to have a son, and now as well as lawyers, actors, philosophers, “Please, Mick, not this one,” he begged Aurélien, who is now seven years old. France’s controversial businessmen (well, alright, she denies his friend after introducing them. “I think Raphael’s infuriated wife, Justine First Lady Donald Trump) and former prime ministers, I’m in love.” Levy, the daughter of French philosopher Carla Bruni- Sarkozy, 40. enthroned, as it were, in the Élysée Palace. Days later, Mick Jagger and Carla Bernard-Henri Levy, responded by BY GETTY IMAGES. GASSIAN/CONTOUR CLAUDE I2 | WW SEPTEMBER 2008 WW SEPTEMBER 2008 | 3 “SO WHAT IF SHE HAD A LOT OF LOVERS? WE DON’T CARE ABOUT HER PRIVATE LIFE. IF SHE WAS A MAN, THERE WOULD BE NO PROBLEM.” writing a best-selling novel – Rien de supporters on the Right, have been more grave (Nothing Serious) – in which she than a little taken aback by the speed described a woman remarkably similar with which the Carla-Nicolas romance to Carla as a “praying mantis” with blossomed and the manner in which the a “Terminator smile”. president has flaunted his private life in Carla remained unfazed. “Everyone public. (They compare it to the rather knows husbands are rarely stolen,” she gallant days of old, when former Socialist retorted. “You either know how to keep President François Mitterand lived a double them, or you don’t.” And just for good life for 20 years, keeping a second family measure, she recorded a song which and siring an illegitimate daughter.) talked about how madly in love she was Elected to the presidency in May 2007, and how the sex just sizzled. The song Nicolas Sarkozy, child of a Hungarian was called Raphael. immigrant father and a mother of Jewish “That’s the thing about Carla Bruni,” one descent, was soon on the lookout for a French businesswoman told The Weekly. new partner, having obtained a divorce “She’s slept with half the planet, but doesn’t from his second wife, Cecilia Ciganer- give a shit about it. It’s nice for a change – Albeniz, in October of that year. that a woman can be like that.” Needless to say, if an American, CECILIA AND NICOLAS had married in British or Australian First – or would-be 1996, after it was discovered by the first First – Lady boasted this kind of sexual Mrs Sarkozy, Marie Dominique Culioli, history, her husband’s career would almost that her husband, then the mayor of the certainly be finished. Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, had Yet this is La France, more particularly been conducting an eight-year affair with Paris, a city charged with sensuality, horrified Cecilia, who, at the time, was Marie by prudery and seemingly unshockable in Dominique’s best friend. (Nicolas had the ways of love. “So what if she had a lot actually fallen in love with the heavily of lovers?” an Italian-born French fashion pregnant Cecilia while performing her designer told The Weekly. “We don’t care marriage ceremony as mayor.) about her private life. If she was a man, Cecilia, a former model herself, was Above: Carla on the catwalk in 1994. there would be no problem.” never cut out to be the First Lady of France Top, left: Carla and her husband Nicolas Sarkozy. Right: The First Lady greeting Too true, except many people here, and, in 2005, while Nicolas was making his the Qatar emir’s wife on Bastille Day. including the president’s traditional pitch for the presidency, escaped to CORBIS. GETTY IMAGES. C WW SEPTEMBER 2008 | 5 Nicolas and Carla make a very public display of their love before their wedding. Right: Carla, as First Lady, with Prince Philip on a “MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF NICOLAS ... state visit in March. WAS OF A VERY MAGNETIC MAN ... IT WAS PRETTY MUCH LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.” New York with her lover, the international The dinner was a roaring success – December 23, 1967, she is the daughter of communications consultant, Richard Attias. seven of them in a house outside Paris, Italian concert pianist, Marysa Borini, and (She is now married to him.) A few months with Carla sitting on the president’s right. step-daughter of Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, later, she was back by her husband’s side “My first impression of Nicolas,” she the rich Turinese tyre maker, art collector and, for a while, the rapprochement said, “and I still have that impression, and classical composer. appeared permanent. was of a very magnetic man, with very Among the guests they would Writing in his autobiography, Testimony, rare intelligence and energy. I’m pretty often welcome to their castle in the last year, Nicolas said, “C is Cecilia. Cecilia bewitched by him, plus I’ve always Po Valley were singer Maria Callas, is my wife. She is part of me … We were liked to talk with my friends or the pianist Arthur Rubinstein and conductor made for each other [and] today Cecilia few men I’ve loved and, with him, it’s Herbert von Karajan. and I have gotten back together for real, and a conversation without end. It was pretty They lived in Versailles-like splendour, surely forever.” much love at first sight.” but at the age of seven, Carla was forced to A few months after those words were move with her family to France in order penned, the couple was obtaining a hurried SO MUCH SO THAT, according to one to escape the wave of kidnapping and divorce and the president of France was reliable source, the couple went home in assassination attempts being orchestrated sending feelers out for a new partner. “Do the presidential car to Carla’s house at about by the terrorist group, the Red Brigades. you know a good girl for me?” he reportedly 1am. Nothing happened. “Carla called Carla went to boarding school in asked Jacques Séguéla, the famous French Séguéla,” the source said, “to complain Switzerland, returned to Paris to study public relations spin doctor. that the president had not tried to make art and architecture, then decided on a Jacques did. Carla Bruni. She happened love to her. ‘Calm down, calm down,’ modelling career at the age of 19. to live in his old house, a two-storey Séguéla told Carla. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ ” By the mid-1990s, she was among retreat nestled behind olive and palm trees He was right. In the days that followed, the highest paid supermodels in the in the 16th arrondissement, and yes, of the French president would woo Carla world, working for fashion houses and course, it would be possible to arrange with text messages, flowers and gifts. designers such as Dior, Christian Lacroix, a discreet evening. Within two weeks, they were being Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel, Versace and Was this what Carla had been seeking? photographed at Disneyland, before Yves Saint Laurent.