How man-eating model Carla Bruni went from rock 'n' roll ingenue to the fierce First Lady of France

This article is from the July/August issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.

On a dreary evening in late March at Windsor Castle, at one of those stuffy state dinners where there's never enough ice, one guest stood out among the awkwardly garbed British aristocrats, with their Dallas hairdos, unfortunate teeth, and ceremonial sashes. Clad in a tight-fitting midnight-blue chiffon gown custom-made by John Galliano, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy—supermodel, vixen, and guitar-strumming rock 'n' roll chanteuse—was making her first major appearance as the First Lady of France, a visit accorded all the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding. A day before, Christie's auction house had nearly caused an international incident by releasing a nude photo of Bruni that she'd posed for 15 years previously. (Estimated to sell for around $4,000, the photo was snapped up by a Chinese collector for $91,000.) But as she stood serenely for photos with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, her past indiscretions seemed forgotten.

Her hair tied back in a pretty chignon, with her sexy, of-the-minute bangs swept rakishly to the side, Bruni skillfully vamped for the ravenous crew of photographers—a talent she'd mastered during her years as a model. In the end, the willowy new première dame managed to completely overshadow her husband. There was one minor faux pas when Bruni attempted to follow Sarkozy as he reviewed the royal honor guard, but the quick-thinking Queen held her back just in time. Grinning like schoolboys, Prince Charles and Prime Minister Gordon Brown all but tripped over themselves to kiss her hand. In England, the visit made headlines for days, and even the most rabid tabloids seemed taken with Bruni's charm. That Sunday, the London Times commended the "perfect little gray suit" she had worn for a daytime event (the reporter couldn't resist wondering if she'd worn panties beneath her demure ensemble). The Telegraph proclaimed her a worthy heir to Princess Diana.

it's been just six months since the husky-voiced, Italian-born Bruni seduced her way into France's Élysée Palace to become the president's most talked-about asset ... and liability. Heir to a million-dollar tire fortune, Bruni moved from Milan to France with her family in 1973 partly to avoid a spate of kidnappings. She could easily have whiled away her days as a socialite, but long before her unlikely pairing with Nicolas Sarkozy, she had built a spectacular career of her own.

At the height of her modeling days, the 5-foot, 9-inch stunner was a favorite of such top designers as Christian Lacroix and Yves Saint Laurent. But she soon became as famous for her tempestuous sex life as she was for her superior cheekbones. Her alleged dalliances with suitors like Donald Trump and Eric Clapton routinely made headlines. Her rocky romance with Mick Jagger in the 1990s, coupled with her fervent denunciations of monogamy—she much preferred, as she famously put it, "polygamy and polyandry"—established her as the nation's most unabashed libertine since the Marquis de Sade.

So it's no surprise that as soon as word of her affair with France's new (and newly divorced) president broke in December 2007, a giddy wave of Carlamania swept the land. The French went from obsessing about nationwide strikes and parliamentary battles to engaging in heated dissections of the First Lady's Dior "Babe" handbag and supposed baby bump. Bruni, of course, reveled in all the attention. She was photographed doing everything from sipping coffee at the palace of Versailles to visiting a children's village in Tunisia.

To most of the French public, "Carlita," as Sarkozy has taken to calling her, is France's answer to Jackie Kennedy, a glamorous ambassador for an increasingly insecure country. She's been likened to Norah Jones (due to the breathy vocal style she's showcased on two solo albums) and to Grace Kelly (for the obvious reasons). But there is also a sizable group of Carla critics who deride her as a ruthless and predatory striver, more aptly compared to the husband-stealing glamour-puss Angelina Jolie.

Though Bruni has never let marriage vows stand in her way, Sarkozy's relationship with his wife was on the rocks well before the model caught his eye. During the then 52-year-old's campaign for the presidency, the papers were filled with rumors of his crumbling marriage. Cecilia Sarkozy, his partner of 23 years, was clearly uncomfortable in the spotlight and rarely joined her husband on the trail. On Sarkozy's first visit to America after he was elected, the couple was invited to a private picnic with President Bush and his father in Kennebunkport, Maine. Cecilia bowed out, claiming illness, raising eyebrows when she was subsequently spotted shopping at a mall—a move that put a damper on the Franco-American détente. Soon after they arrived home, the couple announced their divorce. The French press cynically charged that Sarkozy had timed the announcement to divert attention from nationwide strikes then threatening the French economy.

Friends whispered that Sarkozy was devastated by the split. If so, he didn't stay depressed for long. Dubbed "President Bling Bling" due to his fondness for Prada suits, Rolex watches, and yachts, Sarkozy became a regular fixture at exclusive parties, and even hit the Paris nightclub scene. It was at a private fete just a month after his divorce that Sarkozy was introduced to the then 39-year-old Bruni. He was instantly smitten. For her part, Bruni was said to have been highly amused at the thought of landing herself a president. "I want a man with nuclear power," she told one friend, her voice no doubt dripping with the predatory charm of a Bond arch-villainess.

Yet in her first interview as Madame Sarkozy, published in the weekly news magazine L'Express, Bruni downplayed her randy reputation. Posing in a ladylike, crisp white shirt and a gray cable-knit cashmere sweater, she looked every bit the staid Stepford wife: "I am ... First Lady until the end of my husband's term of office, and his wife until death," she declared. Vowing to put her music career on hold for the good of the country, she left herself a bit of wiggle room should she tire of her new role. "I know that life can hold surprises, but that is my wish," she said, eyelashes aflutter. "I am proud and happy to be First Lady of France. I will do my best."

Of course, old habits die hard. And when it comes to men, France's new First Lady has some very particular habits. At the height of her modeling career in the late 1980s, Bruni, then a runway regular with a coveted Guess campaign under her belt, was regularly seen out and about in London and New York on the arm of rocker Eric Clapton—at least until she ditched old "Slowhand" and upgraded to Mick Jagger. The affair was news to Jerry Hall, who had just given birth to Jagger's daughter Georgia when she got word that the rocker had elected to celebrate the happy occasion by embarking on a romantic Thai getaway with Bruni.

Years later, Clapton seemed to have recovered from his run-in with the model, concluding philosophically that their break-up had been all for the best. "I quietly felt both gratitude and compassion toward [Jagger]," he wrote candidly in his memoir, "first for delivering me from certain doom, and second for apparently suffering such prolonged agony in [Carla's] service."

Hall was less forgiving. After she discovered a fax from Carla to Mick arranging a liaison in Las Vegas, she confronted her rival at a party with a kick in the shins, screaming: "Keep your hands off my man!"

But while she clearly enjoys the hunt, Bruni has never played for keeps. As she has explained publicly, being saddled with a ball and chain, even one as prized as Mick Jagger, was simply not her thing. "I don't care so much about fidelity, commitment," she told one reporter. "I don't believe in promises. It's like prison."

The model was the consummate wild child in those years, clubbing with the likes of Naomi Campbell and Gianni Versace, and startling guests at Monaco's staid Red Cross Ball in 1994 by leaping onto Stevie Wonder's piano in the middle of a performance. Meanwhile, unlike some of her peers, she rarely turned down an opportunity to pose nude in fashion editorials.

In 2000, her love life made headlines once again. Tiring of her brief affair with Jean-Paul Enthoven, a silver-haired French editor and author, Bruni turned her sights on his 26-year-old son, Raphaël. An unremarkable-looking philosophy teacher married to Justine Lévy, the cherub-faced daughter of celebrated French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, Raphaël was powerless to resist. Bruni and Raphaël's son, Aurélien, was born in 2001, and the scandal took on Gossip Girl–like proportions when Justine struck back with a roman à clef titled Rien De Grave (Nothing Serious), about a callous beauty she dubs Terminator who steals the main character's husband and shatters her world.

Raphaël's transgression sent Justine into a spiral of depression and exacerbated her existing drug addiction; writing the book, she later said, was a cathartic experience. But she wasn't about to forgive Bruni. A year later, at a book party held at Diane von Furstenberg's New York studio, Justine coolly informed a reporter, "If I see [Carla], I kill her."

As British journalist India Knight noted in a column during Bruni's recent visit to the UK, the French First Lady elicits such passionate responses from women because "she is the kind of minx who might sleep with your husband simply to annoy you, or to amuse herself, or because she was bored." Even her relatives concur with the sentiment. "When my sister wants someone," Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi has admitted, "she takes him."

Bruni shrugged off the drama with characteristic sangfroid: "Everyone thinks I'm a monster, but I couldn't care less," she told Elle. And when Justine's book debuted, Bruni couldn't resist taking one last swipe at her fallen rival. "[Raphaël and I] just felt sorry for her," she said. "I wouldn't write a book about being dropped! That's so dreadful, so humiliating." Overall, Justine, the victim, came off looking like a bit of a sad sack, even while the French public judged her book to be quite the page-turner, especially the parts about the evil siren described as "beautiful and bionic, with the look of a killer."

Realizing that her stock as a model was declining, Bruni picked up a guitar and quietly transformed herself from mannequin to musician, producing an array of self-penned folk ballads in her Parisian apartment. In 2003, Bruni surprised everyone by releasing her first album, Quel'qun M'a Dit (Someone Told Me). At first the critics were openly skeptical. But over time, her collection of raspy, sexy love songs attracted a loyal following. The record became a sleeper hit, selling 2 million copies and earning Bruni the French equivalent of the Grammy for Best Female Vocalist. In her hit single "Raphaël," Bruni tackled the subject of her home-wrecking affair with Enthoven head-on, praising her lover's hips and "velvet gaze." And just so no one got the idea she was hanging up her stilettos, she offered this breathy declaration of independence: "Pas d'inquiétude, pas de prélude, pas de promesse à l'éternel, juste le monde dans notre lit" (No worries, no future, no eternal promises, just the world in our bed). The song went into high rotation, doubtlessly torturing Justine Lèvy for months. It was the singer-songwriter version of a public scalping. Who needed cable's melodramas with a catfight like this splashed across the society pages?

For her part, Bruni adeptly played the part of the Left Bank bohemian. If she was stealing your husband, it was because she was an artist, you see. In the video for the album's title song, she wore a man's shirt, a pair of socks—and nothing else. When an interviewer dared to bring up her career in fashion, Bruni curtly reminded him that though she may have once been very much the champagne-quaffing model, she had been reading Dostoevsky in her makeup chair all the while. Not only did Bruni sleep with intellectuals, she actually was one. And as unlikely as it seemed, her reputation as a legitimate recording artist persisted. In 2007, she released her second album, No Promises (just in case her audience was still unclear on her stance on promises).

In 2005, distracted by her singing career, Bruni broke up with Enthoven. Approximately three years later, she reappeared on the arm of the freshly divorced French president. The couple was first photographed at Paris Disneyland, of all places. Their curious pairing was all the more odd since Nicolas Sarkozy was a conservative and Bruni an avowed socialist. In the run-up to the French election, she had even endorsed his rival, Segolene Royale, and spoke out against Sarkozy's immigration policies, noting her own Italian heritage. Overall, the prospect of a Sarkozy presidency seemed to leave her cold. "Oh, just Sarkozy," she sighed to one reporter. "I don't know if he's going to ... You know France is ... Ahhhh."

The couple's public displays of affection seemed so hokey and absurdly overpublicized that many observers initially suspected their affair was a PR sham aimed at distracting the public from the flagging economy. In the months leading up to their private wedding in February, Sarkozy canoodled with Bruni in Luxor and Sharm-el-Sheikh, and threatened to bring her on all of his official state visits.

Not surprisingly, the international press was agog over the unlikely lovebirds. Sucking in his gut, puffing out his chest, and beaming with pride at the bombshell on his arm, France's take-charge new president seemed to have fallen under a spell. And though the French public has given Bruni consistently high marks, Sarkozy has plummeted in the polls, with an approval rating of just 41 percent.

Before they had even wed, Bruni demanded that a recording studio be built at the Élysée Palace—not that she'd be using it much, since she had decided to keep living in her classic mansion in Paris's 16th arrondissement, where Sarkozy was welcome to sleep over. Nice as the palace was, Bruni couldn't be blamed for staying put; as the papers delighted in reporting, she was approximately 20 times richer than her husband. Not only did the dual households present a logistical nightmare from a security standpoint, they also offered an odd insight into the couple's power dynamic. The First Lady, clearly, was calling the shots.

In early May of 2008, Sarkozy marked the anniversary of his first, turbulent year as president with a photo shoot for the Italian glossy Chi. In one picture, he looks every bit the cat with his cream, sitting at his desk with Bruni perched awkwardly on his lap. "Some predicted that Carla would destroy me," he observed in a subsequent interview with Paris Match, "but she hasn't."

Indeed, three months into their marriage, Bruni has remained uncharacteristically demure. "But people are waiting for her to make a major mistake," says writer Catherine Delors. "It's not really her style to take a back seat." Bruni may be dressing the part of a Jackie Kennedy, but ever since the couple decided to celebrate their wedding reception at Versailles, she's begun to resemble another ambitious political wife: Marie Antoinette, a foreign-born queen, who, as Delors notes, also "flaunted her beauty, her youth, her sexual power, and her political influence over the king." And we all know how that turned out.

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Boys on the Side

La Carlita has been linked to a panoply of A-list lotharios. Here are a few of her greatest hits:

Eric Clapton
The rock legend says he dodged a bullet when Bruni ditched him in 1989.

Mick Jagger
Bruni's affair with the Rolling Stone earned her a kick from Jerry Hall.

Donald Trump
She describes the Donald as "funny," but insists he was just a friend.

Kevin Costner
Bruni and Costner were linked in the press. She fervently denied the affair.

Raphaël Enthoven
Bruni fell for the 26-year-old prof while dating his 51-year-old dad.

This article is from the July/August issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.