CARLA BRUNI

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Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (born Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi, 23 December 1967) is an Italian-born, naturalized French songwriter, singer, and former model. She is the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy whom she married on 2 February 2008.

Early years

Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi was born in Turin, Italy, and is heiress to the fortune created by the Italian tire manufacturing company CEAT, founded in the 1920s by her grandfather Virginio Bruni Tedeschi. The company was sold in the 1970s to Pirelli (the brand lives on via its former subsidiary in India, founded in 1958). The family moved to France in 1975, reportedly to escape the threat of kidnapping by the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s. Bruni grew up in France from age seven and attended boarding school in Switzerland. She went to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at 19 to become a model.

Family

Though she is legally a daughter of Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini and industrialist and classical composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, Bruni-Sarkozy revealed to Vanity Fair in 2008 that her biological father is an Italian-born, naturalized Brazilian grocery magnate Maurizio Remmert, who, as a young classical guitarist, had a six-year affair with her mother.Her sister is actress and movie director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. She also had a brother, Virginio Bruni Tedeschi (1959 - 4 July 2006), who died from complications of HIV/AIDS.

From her biological father, she has a half-sister, Consuelo Remmert.

Career

Modeling

Bruni signed with City Models at age 19. Paul Marciano, president and creative director of Guess? Inc., came across her picture among composite cards of aspiring models and chose her to model with Estelle Lefébure in campaigns for Guess? jeans. Bruni subsequently worked for designers and fashion houses such as Christian Dior, Givenchy, Paco Rabanne, Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Yves Saint-Laurent, Chanel and Versace.By the 1990s, Bruni was among the 20 highest-paid fashion models, earning $7.5 million a year. While modeling, Bruni dated Eric Clapton, then Mick Jagger.On 11 April 2008, a 1993 nude photograph of Bruni sold at auction for US$91,000 (65,093 €) — more than 60 times the expected price.She was a modeling subject of a 1999 trompe-l'œil wool-knit dress body painting by Joanne Gair that is included in Gair's second book, Body Painting: Masterpieces by Joanne Gair.