Hello! Magazine has a new interview with hot French first lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy and I found myself impressed with the way she views the gossip press and journalists. She realizes that if she wants to use them for publicity for her projects she’s got to take the gossip that goes along with that. She says it doesn’t bother her and she understands that journalism is a difficult job and that people are going to talk crap about her.

40 year-old former model and singer Carla Bruni Sarkozy made headlines around the world when she married divorced French president Nicolas Sarkozy, 53, in February after a whirlwind womance. She’s a controversial figure and once had an affair with the married son of her boyfriend at the time. The son’s wife is a novelist and wrote a book inspired by her husband’s infidelity in which she described the other woman as “a praying mantis.” Carla has had relationships with Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and Donald Trump and has said that shequickly tires of monogamy and prefers “polygamy.” [details from Wikipedia]

In her Hello! Interview, you can see how Bruni she copes with the negative press about her. She just figures it’s part of the deal and that people are going to say negative things no matter what she does. I don’t know if she’s being manipulative by phrasing it so cleverly, but her flattery and attitude won me over:

Do you get angry about some of the things the press write?
“No, I think it’s a very hard job. Journalism isn’t easy. Many of my friends are journalists, so I know it’s a special, creative job. I respect the press and have never had any problems with it, so whatever they write, I don’t really care. It’s impossible to control the press, so there’s no point trying.”

Not everybody sees it that way…
“With my modeling and songwriting, maybe the press is manipulating me but I’m using them to spread my work and image. So it’s a deal. I don’t feel stressed by it. I could have chosen to be a doctor or a lawyer. I’ve had a lucky life so far.”

Why didn’t you become a doctor or a lawyer?
“Too much studying. Maybe I’m too lazy for it. But everybody is free to chose a job that doesn’t have a public image. And there are many fantastic jobs. So when I chose those two jobs no one forced me to do so. And when I married my husband I chose it. So I will not say, ‘It’s so hard and I feel like a victim.’ I’m not the victim of anything. And if people don’t like my work or my image they are allowed to say so. This is democracy. It’s very important.”

[From Hello! Magazine, print edition, July 22, 2008]

How awesome is this woman? She should give seminars for celebrities on how to cope with fame. Of course Bruni has to have it a lot easier in France than the celebrities stalked by the paparazzi in America. She said that she loves to go to the movies with her husband, the President, and that sometimes they slip in and out of the theater with only a few people noticing them and they usually just say hi without freaking out.

Bruni may have had a book written about her homewrecking, but she knows that comes with the territory and she doesn’t really care. Can our French readers please enlighten me about the way she’s portrayed in the press there? I would assume the gossip culture is much different.

Carla Bruni Sarkozy is promoting her latest album, her third, titled “Comme si de rien n’était,” which means “As if Nothing Ever Happened.” Here she is singing “Quelqu’Un M’A Dit” which is from her first album released in 2003.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are shown at “Gala dinner for the first summit of the ‘Union for the Mediterranean’ held at the Grand Palais” in Paris on 7/13/08. Credit: WENN