Blasphemer. France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, 40, has compared herself to former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Jackie, Bruni tells Vanity Fair, “was so young and modern, and of course unconsciously I would project myself more like (her) than, for instance, Madame de Gaulle, who would be much more like the classical French woman behind her husband.”
The model turned pop singer wed President Nicolas Sarkozy, 53, in February after a three-month hurricane romance that had the media in a frenzy.
“My mistake is that I fell madly in love and did not take the measure of how enormous this was going to be,” Bruni said of the media firestorm. The Italian-born Bruni previously plumbed the secret depths of romance with Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. She released her third CD on July 11, which shot up to No. 1 on the charts in just a week.
Dressing down
Los Angeles has become one dull-as-dishwater burg since Britney Spears has resumed wearing underwear.
Police Chief William Bratton said Thursday that the city has had fewer problems with paparazzi since Spears “started wearing clothes” and other celebrities changed their partying ways.
“If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody anymore, thank God, and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay. We don't seem to have much of an issue,” Bratton told KNBC-TV.
Bratton said the altered behavior makes proposals being considered for new laws to crack down on paparazzi an unnecessary “farce” because photogs who swarm neighborhoods and shopping districts have been losing interest in snapping stars in trouble.
“If the ones that attract the paparazzi behave in the first place, like we expect of anybody. That solves about 90 percent of the problem. The rest we can deal with,” he said.
Bratton, wearing gray gym clothes with a towel around his neck, said he interrupted his workout to speak to a TV reporter after hearing Councilman Dennis Zine discussing possible new restrictions on freelance photographers. Zine was set to lead a meeting later in the day at City Hall to discuss ways to restrict aggressive paparazzi.
Officials from celeb enclaves in and around Los Angeles such as Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Malibu were to take part.
Bratton called the hearing “grandstanding and foolishness” and said he would not take part.
“We have sufficient laws on the books” to deal with aggressive paparazzi, he said.
Lord of the ring
“Bachelor: London Calling” star Matt Grant, 27, who recently broke off his made-for-TV engagement with the show's winning gal, Shayne Lamas, is upset that the 2.85-carat Tacori platinum-and-diamond eternity ring he presented Lamas hasn't been returned.
“It wasn't a 'gift' so much,” Grant tells People. “It's not a television or a handbag. It's a symbol of marriage that didn't happen.”
Lamas, 22, for her part, tells the magazine she plans to keep the ring “safe and clean and in a glass box – like a glass slipper.” Lamas says Grant is happy with the arrangement. “He wants to come over and look at it,” she said.
You can tell this couple bickered: “I never said it was cool to just keep it,” Grant says in response. “If she said we spoke about it, she just made it up. Sometimes she thinks she can say anything and I'll go along with it.”
Grant says he wants to auction off the ring for charity.
–COMPILED BY CAROLINE DIPPING FROM NEWS SERVICE REPORTS
