Carla’s staying power
Standing by your man. It can be tricky. Especially if he’s tricky. Ask Carla Bruni. The 53-yearold former supermodel turned singer songwriter is sticking by her guy, despite the mounting evidence against him. All she really wants to do is sing us sweet French lullabies, and now the mother of two has found herself embroiled in all sorts of tales, tall and small, wide and long, some dark and dank.
‘What insane harassment, my love, the fight goes on, truth will see the light,’ she wrote on Instagram following news of her husband’s three-year jail sentence (two years suspended) for corruption and influence peddling. Something to do with offering a senior judge a cushy number in Monaco in return for classified info on another case against him, since dropped. The cushy number never materialised either. Doesn’t matter apparently. The conversation was enough to do him in. A conversation that was wiretapped and all.
Some 3,700 private conversations on secret phone lines were tapped to produce evidence for the trial. Just like wine and cheesemaking, political vengeance is an art finely honed in France. For a former president who was ‘tough on crime’ during his 2007-2012 tenure, crime is not necessarily tough on him. He doesn’t have to go to prison. An electronic ankle bracelet chez Nicolas et Carla will do the job. Of course he’s appealing. He’s a trained lawyer after all.
They always seemed an unlikely pair, Sarkozy and Bruni, but beauty has long loved power, with the lovebirds marrying just two months after meeting at a dinner party in Paris in November 2007. Four years later, their daughter Giulia was born.
LOYAL: Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing more legal action, with his wife Carla Bruni The pair come from hyper-privileged backgrounds. Carla didn’t marry him for the money. She has plenty herself, an heiress to a fortune. Now the Italian/French aristocratic beauty must brace herself for more to come. Later this month her husband will be back in court, this time on trial for exceeding the strict limits on his failed 2012 presidential campaign. We’ll hear about a special invoice system that apparently concealed a €42.8 million spend, nearly double the quota. Not to mention the looming Gaddafi case. The big one. Looking back now, that five day official visit to France in December 2007 by the former Libyan dictator, his first in three decades, looks suspect. Why roll out the red carpet for a leader with such an odious human rights record?
Did Sarkozy accept up to €50 million from Colonel Gaddafi to fund his presidential campaign? French website Mediapoint has documents claiming he did, with tales of suitcases packed with €200 and €500 notes being handed over in dodgy deals. Sarkozy, for the record,vehemently denies everything.
Will Bruni continue to stand by her man? The singer does a beautiful cover of Tammy Wynette’s controversial ode to men who do ‘things that you don’t understand’ on her fifth album French Touch. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. Only Bruni can figure that one out.
They seemed an unlikely pair but beauty has always loved power