Celebrity

New Film Goes Inside Carla Bruni & Nicolas Sarkozy's Romance

The sparks were "instantaneous, immediate," and she refused to choose between him and her music, she reveals

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Published on December 29, 2008 01:05PM EST

Model and singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy says it was bombshell attraction that led to her marrying the French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A guest at an intimate, eight-strong dinner party, she was seated next to Sarkozy, and the sparks were “instantaneous, immediate … I don’t know what he has but he has something very protective that I never found before, maybe because I was much more attracted to artists,” she says of their November 2007 meeting in an upcoming film about her.

She describes that and more in Somebody Told Me About … Carla Bruni, which airs in France on New Year’s Day. The pair wed only two months later after a whirlwind romance, which Bruni, 41, recalls was not understood by many.

“I realized people were shocked when I first started dating, because presidents don’t date and I understand that. But it’s just another world for me because I come from the modeling and the music – we can date forever, we don’t have to get married,” she says, according to the U.K.’s The Sunday Times newspaper, which got a sneak peek of the 80-minute film.

“Also it was the first time a president got divorced, usually they don’t get divorced because that’s not good for their position,” she says. “So I guess Nicolas is having a life like a normal 50-year-old man: He can get divorced and he can get married again.”

The Sunday Times also reports how she laid down the law before their marriage.

“I said to Nicolas, ‘I cannot choose between you and my music, it’s ridiculous. I’m not going to drop my job and iron my husband’s shirts for the next four years.’ So of course he didn’t ask me to choose, I decided to keep my job,” she says.

The film opens with a lighthearted moment, as the woman who has been linked with Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, says she has left her past behind. She is seen during a break in recording her latest music and she states: “No more sex, no more drugs, only rock ‘n’ roll!”

She has continued with her singing career and, earlier this year, released a new album. Bruni wants to write and sing songs “for other people as much as I can as long as I can until I die.”

She adds: “Maybe when my husband is no longer president of France, I can play live again and be an old lady singing the blues. That would be nice”.