Boris said that the sexy photo I sent him was enough to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window KEYNOTE ADDRESS
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JENNIFER Arcuri today tells for the first time how she fell in love with Boris Johnson during an affair she says lasted four years.
The businesswoman says they slept together at the flat where she had a pole dancer’s pole.
She says they met up once a week at the height of the affair, she sent arty topless pictures and admits: “I loved him. I adored him.”
Jennifer reveals a mutual “physical and intellectual attraction”. They shared a love of Shakespeare, she codenamed him Alexander the Great, and she says he loved her body and mind and “couldn’t keep his hands off me” on their first tryst. But ultimately, she says, he was a “cowardly wet noodle” for not standing by her in the row over her presence on foreign trade trips.
Jennifer says her romance with PM Boris – who was Mayor of London at the time – lasted from 2012 to 2016. It was his second term of office and he was married to now ex-wife Marina, mother of their four children.
Questions first surfaced two years ago when it was revealed Jennifer, 35, was allowed on three taxpayer-funded trade missions led by Boris, 56.
SOCK
It was clear they were close but she has never confirmed they were lovers – until now.
Talking about sex, Jennifer says: “We were in an intimate relationship for four years. I loved him, and with good cause. But the man I thought I knew doesn’t exist any more.”
Lifting the lid on the affair she says:
■ Boris wined and dined her openly at a London restaurant, telling her: “I want to date you, you’re the only American I’ve ever fancied.”
■ They first had sex in her Shoreditch flat hours before he sat between Marina and Princess Anne at the opening of the 2012 London Paralympics. ■ Before he dashed off to the ceremony she had to hunt for a sock he lost in the throes of passion. ■ He requested racy images of her and said one raunchy picture was “enough to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window”.
■ They exchanged sexual messages, sometimes while he was on mayoral duty.
■ He had to borrow £3.10 on their first date and later shrugged off concerns about kissing in public, saying: “This is my city, I don’t care.”
Jennifer reveals her astonishing story in an interview with the Sunday Mirror in her native America. Her revelations are hugely significant, raising questions over public cash and whether Boris breached a code of conduct.
A Greater London Authority probe will examine whether he behaved with “honesty and integrity”, whether Jennifer was given “preferential treatment” and if there was any conflict of interest which should have been declared. Boris spoke at a series of technology events organised by Jennifer, who went on to receive £126,000 of taxpayer money in event sponsorships and grants. The bulk, £100,000, came in a government grant in 2019.
Jennifer maintains she was invited on trade trips in her own right as a member of the London tech-scene “ecosystem”. Speaking of Boris’s failure to stand up for her after suggestions of favouritism, Jennifer says: “It’s embarrassing. What a child. You can’t get on the phone and say, ‘Look Jen, this is crazy, welcome to politics’? He just took the most cowardly, wet noodle of approaches. This is who he is and it’s about time we recognised that.
“A great leader is charismatic, courageous and brave. None of these words I would use to describe Boris Johnson.”
She says she didn’t fully understand the rules around the trips and she now believes Boris should have declared the friendship. She adds: “I would have seen no reason why he shouldn’t declare me.”
Jennifer was a business student when she met Boris at an event where he spoke, in 2011. She says: “He entered the room, his hair all dishevelled. That’s when I saw the first real magic of Boris Johnson. He’d turn the whole room into a bunch of howling schoolgirls. I made a beeline for the front of the line. I said, ‘Hello, my name is Jennifer, if you didn’t know me, now you do’.”
Months later, she volunteered to campaign for him in his 2012 London Mayor re-election bid. They met again on the so-called Boris Bus – and he remembered her. They swapped numbers so he could arrange to attend an event run by her fledgling company, Innotech.
“There was an obvious spark,” Jennifer says. Boris even texted her while at the campaign event, watching her from a few metres away.
LAUGHING
Jennifer says: “He said, ‘Boris calling Jennifer.’ Then he said, ‘You’re looking well.’ I texted back something like, ‘You’re welcome to look’. There was this immediate attraction on both sides, physical and intellectual.”
Weeks before the Innotech event, Jennifer says Boris texted, asking to go for a drink. She saved his number under Alex the Great, as his real first name is Alexander.
Jennifer says: “I remember a text saying, ‘Drink one day?’ I squealed. One of my male roommates said, ‘What kind of girl is friends with Boris Johnson?’ I remember everybody laughing. I didn’t really get it at the time.
“It was suggested I have a codename for the Mayor of London because of the random text messaging. It would come at any time, any hour.” The romance unfolded as the London Olympics and Paralympics were just a few months away.
Boris gave a keynote address at one of her tech events on April 13 – before romping to victory in the May 3 election. Buoyed by his win, Jennifer says Boris finally pinned her down for their first “private drink” – at the swish Tavistock Hotel in London’s Bloomsbury.
Jennifer says: “He showed up late, dishevelled and chaotic. He was biking – he came in with his helmet. I thought, ‘That’s a great look for the start of this’. He went to the bar and came back within a minute and said, ‘Jennifer can I borrow £3.10?’ I thought, ‘I’m a student buying you a beer, you should be ashamed of yourself ’.
“It cracked me up. He asked things like where did you come from, what do you want to be? I remember being enchanted with this man.”
Weeks later, Jennifer says Boris invited
He just took the most cowardly, wet noodle of approaches, it’s who he is JENNIFER ARCURI BLAMES BORIS FOR LACK OF SUPPORT
LET DOWN Jennifer feels Boris should have offered more support
her for a meal at Ciao Bella on Lamb’s Conduit Street – where he complimented her on a Union Jack bow in her hair.
She says: “He gave me a hug in front of everyone. It just felt so natural. We had red wine, I had a nicoise salad and he had fish and chips and then ate off my plate.
“He was very forthright. He said, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you, I want to date you, I really like you’. I said, ‘I’m not someone you play games with.
“You are always honest with me and you respect me and my time. If you don’t want to see me, you just tell me’. He said, ‘I’m not one to fall for American women’. I responded, ‘I’m not one to fall for politicians – we’re going to have to play this very slow’.
“This is where I got to see a little bit of the man for the first time and I’d be lying if I was to say I didn’t love who I was seeing.” She says Boris stroked her leg under the table and, outside, begged to go home with her.
Jennifer says: “He screamed, ‘Kiss me!’ And I said, ‘Mr Mayor, I do not kiss politicians on the street’. He said, ‘This is my city, I don’t care’.” Boris also posed for selfies with members of the public outside.
Jennifer recalls: “He was very much wanting to take me home that evening. I refused to give in. He got very frustrated and biked off in a huff.”
Jennifer says they did not discuss his marriage at length. But, on reflection, she admits: “I can look back and say I should have handled that differently, but I’ve learned a lot.”
Boris has a chaotic love life which has seen him father at least six children. He has four with Marina, one with fiancée Carrie Symonds, 33, and another from an affair with art consultant Helen Macintyre, an unpaid adviser to City Hall at the time.
Jennifer says the first time she slept with
Boris was on August 29, 2012 – just before the Paralympics ceremony. She says he turned up at her flat on London’s trendy Shoreditch High Street in mayoral suit with Olympics badges.
Jennifer says: “I was completely in control. I could tell this man was so excited beyond words to see me. It gave me the upper hand.”
After sex, she said Boris didn’t want to leave and she had to shove him out of the door. But first she had to find his lost sock.
She says: “He didn’t want to leave, very clearly. It was awkward – you’re supposed to be on stage and on TV in a few hours. Now, I’m pushing you out the door with all of your mayoral bric a brac, the lanyard with the big badge, and the lapel pins. He was very clearly distraught because he wanted to stay. I think I couldn’t even find his sock – it was just the most bizarre experience.
“There is always the awkward afterwards. I remember teasing him. I told him I’d write a
ON BUS Jennifer and Boris on campaign trail book with a chapter – My Affair With The Mayor. I would let the women of London know. He said, ‘You would never do that’. I said, ‘Let’s just hope you never ignore me’.”
That evening, 11million people tuned in to the Paralympics opening ceremony where Boris was pictured alongside Princess Anne, Prince William and his wife Kate.
But even as the night wore on, Jennifer says Boris was texting and calling her. She adds: “He was in contact all night. I did see him on the television. It was bizarre.”
The pair met up regularly over the next four years – but Jennifer says they were as happy discussing Shakespeare as having sex. She says they recited Sonnet 29 together, which begins: “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes...”
BEAUTIFUL
She adds: “He’d say, ‘You are the most beautiful woman, I can’t stop thinking about you, but I love hearing what you have to say. Of course I love your body, and your face, and your breasts, but you are a very clever woman and I feel so honoured you would have me in your life’.
“I did whatever I could find to convince myself I wasn’t falling for this man but, on some level, I knew.” Jennifer says they exchanged sexual messages. She sent an “arty” picture of her topless – the one she says Boris described as “enough to make a bishop kick through a stained-glass window”.
Most of the pictures were from professional shoots and Jennifer sent them whenever Boris said he was desperate to see her.
She explains: “That was one of my really very sexy photos. I had some topless ones I took by a fireplace. You don’t see me topless, but you see the silhouette of my breast. It’s a pin-up kind of look. I went to the polo and I won a photoshoot.
“That’s when I did other photos for him – vignette, black and white, totally tasteful, topless. One of the guys who did all my tech events asked to do a photoshoot with me. That’s where the photo with the pearls and the fur coat in the stairwell, that’s where that came from. When I did a shoot, he might say I’m desperate, or I miss you, and I’d respond with a photo.”
In 2016, she decided to cool things. By the end of the year she was with Matthew Hickey and pregnant. They are now married. Jennifer says she refused to put her life and family plans on hold for Boris.
She adds: “I deserved more. He could love me for fun, in a torrid affair. Did he want to start a family again? That’s not where he was at the moment I was with him.
“I wasn’t going to be a back-up plan, or the last 747,000th on his list to deal with. I adored him and would be lying to say I wanted there to be a time when he wasn’t in my life.”
Last night No 10 declined to comment.
He could not keep his hands off and wanted to stay. I couldn’t find his sock JENNIFER ON ROMP BEFORE HE DASHED TO THE PARALYMPICS