LONDON, England - September 16, 2010 - Michelle Obama thinks being America’s First Lady is hell, Carla Bruni reveals today in a wildly indiscreet book.
Miss Bruni divulges that Mrs. Obama replied when asked about her position as the U.S. president’s wife, “Don’t ask! It’s hell. I can’t stand it!”
Details of the private conversation, which took place at the White House during an official visit by Nicolas Sarkozy last March, emerged in Carla and the Ambitious, a book written in collaboration with Miss Bruni.
However another book, an unauthorized biography about the French president's wife, offers an insight into an apparently testy relationship between the two women.
Author Besma Lahouri refers to an alleged rivalry with Michelle Obama and says it has strained relations between the French and U.S. presidential couples.
As first lady, Ms. Lahouri says, Bruni-Sarkozy's obsessions have shifted away from rock stars to women she perceives as rivals.
One is Nicolas Sarkozy's second wife Cecilia, who was divorced from the French president months after he took office, and the second is Michelle Obama.
She is described in the book as “the only one in (Carla's) eyes able to challenge her for the title of the world's sexiest and most glamorous first lady.”
The book chronicles the minutia of the first ladies' various meetings, suggesting that Obama's alleged antipathy, or perhaps just indifference, to Bruni-Sarkozy has allegedly helped keep relations frosty between the French and U.S. presidential couples.
Ms. Lahouri says Bruni-Sarkozy is “a chameleon”, someone who has “trained herself to be a formidable actress.”
“She is a very foxy woman - I choose the word ‘foxy’ over ‘clever’. In fact, very foxy.”
The investigative reporter says Bruni's image of distant, well-heeled perfection has kept her at arm's length from the French people.
