Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (born Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi, 23 December 1967) is an Italian-born, naturalized French[1] songwriter, singer and former model. Since February 2008, she has been the third wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She held Italian citizenship until the summer of 2008.
Heiress to the Italian tire manufacturing company CEAT founded in the 1920s by her grandfather Virginio Bruni Tedeschi that was sold in the 1970s to Pirelli (the brand lives on via its former subsidiary in India, founded in 1958),[2] she was born in Turin, Italy. The family moved to France in 1973, reportedly to escape the threat of kidnapping by the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s. Carla grew up in France from age five and attended boarding school in Switzerland. She returned to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at 19 to become a model.