American model Vanessa Hessler, who has appeared in advertisements for Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and L’Oreal lost her biggest client yesterday after she spoke out, defending boyfriend Mutassim Gadhafi and the Gadhafi family in an interview with the Italian media.
Hessler, 23, said she had shared a four-year “very beautiful love story” with Mutassim Gadhafi, the 36-year-old son and heir of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who died with his father outside the Libyan city of Sirte on October 21.
Hessler added said that the Western forces made am error in supporting the rebels who ended Moammar Gadhafi’s 42-year reign.
“We, France and the United Kingdom, financed the rebels but people don’t know what they are doing,” Hessler told Italian magazine Diva e Donna, adding that “the Gaddafi family is not how they are being depicted, they are normal people.”
On Monday, Telefonica Germany fired Hessler from a job that had given her instant fame across Germany, France and Italy. For the past several years, Vanessa Hessler had been known as “Alice”, the spokeswoman for the company’s “Alice” internet service.
Telefonica immediately killed the relationship with a tweet. The company said that the model’s romantic relationships were “private business,” but the company “cannot accept her comments on the Libya conflict.”
Hessler’s Facebook page, meanwhile, has been overflowing with messages of support from her fans congratulating her on her “courage and honesty.”
Vanessa Hessler was born to an American father and an Italian mother and spent much of her early years in Washington, D.C.
Related articles
- American Supermodel Defends Gadhafi Family, Loses Job (abcnews.go.com)
- German model Vanessa Hessler sacked for supporting Gaddafis (telegraph.co.uk)
Get Blippitt via RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and be sure to get our Daily Email Broadcast.
