By CHARLOTTE WACE
PAUSING to remove an errant dab of pink lipstick at the corner of her mouth, she checked her reflection in the lobby mirror. Then, furtively, she glanced out of the hotel’s side entrance and caught a glimpse of the waiting paparazzi.
At this stage, it would have been easy to slip out of the side door unnoticed.
But if anyone thought Boris Johnson’s pole-dancing, rumoured ‘lover’ Jennifer Arcuri was going to make a discreet exit from the Royal Horseguards Hotel on Friday morning they could think again.
With a defiant toss of her tumbling blonde mane, she adjusted her moviestar dark shades (despite the gathering rainclouds) and clacked across the marble lobby floor in her €930 gold-embossed Ferragamo boots.
Then, head held high, she strode out of the front door to the delight of waiting photographers and continued posing and smiling during the short walk to her meeting in Whitehall which, conveniently, saw her strut past the gates of Downing Street.
Ms Arcuri has privately told friends in the US that she has ‘loathed’ the attention the scandal has brought to her family and was forced to leave her rented home for a while because of the paparazzi attention. But last night an eyewitness told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is a woman who wanted to be noticed. She could have sneaked out of the side door and no-one would have been any the wiser. Instead, every eye was on her.’
While no one can know what the British prime minister and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds think of the fact his alleged one-time paramour is now ensconced in a five-star hotel a stone’s throw from No10, one thing is abundantly clear. The Jennifer Arcuri circus has hit town, with an ITV documentary tonight, Exposure: When Boris met Jennifer, allowing her to air explosive allegations about her relationship with the premier. Plugging the show, in typically self-effacing style, she told reporters it was called ‘When Jennifer met Boris’.
The drama unfolded as the Californian mother-of-one arrived in London for a series of meetings and public appearances which, one LA friend says, ‘are solely aimed at furthering the career of Jennifer Arcuri’.
At 8.50am on Friday, Ms Arcuri, dressed in black trousers and a frilly white blouse, sat down for coffee and croissants with a cyber security expert under the magnificent crystal chandeliers in the hotel’s dining room.
An onlooker said: ‘She was telling her companion in a very loud voice about possibly appearing on the Victoria Derbyshire show, before discussing how she wanted to come across. At one point she said loudly: “I don’t wanna be too American.”’
By this stage someone – perhaps Ms Arcuri’s representatives – had tipped off the press.
A crowd of photographers and cam
era crews gathered outside. After finishing her croissant, Ms Arcuri disappeared to her room before emerging 10 minutes later, makeup touched-up to perfection, wearing a dramatic fur-trimmed cape. At this point she looked out of the side entrance.
THE witness said: ‘I thought she’d spotted the paparazzi and was ready to leave through the side door. In fact, she had exactly the opposite in mind. She looked in the mirror, dabbed her lipstick, adjusted her sunglasses, nodded at her male friend and then sashayed through the lobby and gave the waiting photographers the shot they were waiting for.
‘She acted more like a movie star than someone embroiled in a political scandal.’
Lest anyone forget, Ms Arcuri, 34, who styles herself as the PM’s former ‘tech adviser’, received £11,500 (€13,400) in sponsorship from a mayoral organisation when Mr Johnson was Mayor of London, a further £15,000 (€17,520) government grant for foreign entrepreneurs in Britain and her company Hacker House was awarded another £100,000 (€140,000) grant by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in January.
The PM denies any impropriety in the awarding of funds during his time as London mayor, saying all proper procedures were followed.
As she posed for the cameras on Friday, she was on her way to a 90minute meeting at the DCMS.
It is thought Ms Arcuri is preparing for a ‘return match’ on Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan, who famously asked her nine times if she had an affair with the PM, a question she refused to answer when she appeared on his show last month.
On Friday, Ms Arcuri joked with reporters about ‘popping in’ to No10 and implied her visit during the Election campaign was coincidental. But one source told the MoS that Arcuri has meetings planned with ‘high ranking’ Conservative bosses and may even meet members of the Labour Party.
‘The reality is that Jennifer feels scorned by Boris. He hasn’t reached out to her since the scandal erupted,’ an LA-based friend explained. ‘Clearly the Tories are nervous and Labour will try to exploit this as much as they can.
‘He [Boris] is supposed to be sending someone very high up in his camp to meet with her while she’s in the UK.
‘But she’s also saying she will meet up with Labour MPs.
‘When it comes down to it, this is all about furthering the career of Jennifer Arcuri.’