Who Is Nicolas Sarkozy's Model Wife, Carla Bruni?

Nicolas Sarkozy was the president of France from 2007 until 2012, and his political career was mired in scandal. In March 2021, he was convicted for "influence peddling for attempting to bribe a judge," as per the Daily Beast. A series of audio tapes from his time as president had leaked, and in one of the recordings (via the Daily Beast) Sarkozy's wife, Carla Bruni, referred to her husband as a "kept man," inferring that she was the bread winner of the family.

The Italian-born beauty met Sarkozy while the two attended a dinner party in 2007. As covered by The Guardian, Bruni and Sarkozy hit it off right away, and that night she showed him some lyrics she had recently written. "I wanted to show him I was a poet, eh?" she said jokingly, "Poet he never had." The former politician never discarded those lyrics, and the two were married on Feb. 2, 2008, according to Hello!.

Being in the public eye as the first lady was no problem for Bruni as she had been in the spotlight from a young age. "I'd been famous since I was 19, and so you get used to it," she told The Guardian in 2013. "So I was actually happy, because that famous thing really helped me through the time that my husband was the president," Bruni added.

She has been famous for years, but why is Bruni so well-known?

When Carla Bruni was 5 years old, her affluent family relocated from Italy to France for political reasons, as per Hello!. Bruni began her modeling career at the age of 19 and worked on campaigns for brands such as Guess Jeans and Christian Dior. She made a fortune as one of the world's top models in the 1990s, and took home over $7.5 million in 1998 alone. As covered by Catwalk Yourself, the model started to focus on a potential music career in the late '90s. In November 2002, the aspiring singer released her first album, Quelqu'un m'a dit.

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger imparted invaluable advice to Bruni about becoming a singer. "You have to put on a character, so you can separate your real life from your stage life," he told her (via Friday magazine). In fact, Bruni had a well-publicized love affair with the famed singer throughout much of the '90s. The model met the Stones singer when she was dating Eric Clapton, who — as documented in the book Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger — "begged his friend to stay away from Carla" (via the Daily News).

Bruni's affair with Jagger happened while he was married to Jerry Hall, who went public with her disapproval of her husband's extramarital relationships. "I think people should learn not to wash their dirty linen in public," Bruni was quoted as saying in Jagger's book after hearing Hall's comments.

Nicolas Sarkozy is not the only political leader that Carla Bruni has been romantically linked to. As per BuzzFeed News, the New York Post reported in 1991 that former President Donald Trump had left Marla Maples to be with the Italian model. A year later, Bruni vehemently denied the allegations. "Trump is obviously a lunatic," she told the Daily Mail, per BuzzFeed, "I've only ever met him once, about a year ago, at a big charity party in New York," adding she was "deeply embarrassed by the rumors. "And I haven't seen him since, of that I'm sure."

Prior to settling down with Sarkozy, Bruni was involved in a scandal with French journalist Jean-Paul Enthoven. She had been in a long-term relationship with the writer until she called things off, but the model did not stray far to find her next partner — as she began dating his son, French philosopher Raphael Enthoven (as per Friday magazine).

Bruni and Raphael had a son together, Aurelien, but the couple's relationship caused a rift between Raphael and Jean-Paul. In 2020, Raphael released an autobiographical book, Le Temps gagné (Time Saved) which detailed his relationship. To her credit, Bruni took the airing of her personal business in stride. "I'm a democracy person, everybody can do what he wants. I like everybody to be expressing themselves," she told Friday magazine in response to the book's release.