The partner of former French president Francois Hollande, actress Julie Gayet, reportedly sent an angry text to French First Lady Brigitte Macron for excluding her from a party at the Elysée Palace – and inviting her love rival instead.
The claim was made in Paris Match magazine, which interviewed Hollande and Ms Gayet and spoke to their associates for a feature – however the actress asked not to be quoted directly in the piece.
Whether the story came directly from Gayet or someone close to her is unclear, but the magazine reports that the actress, 47, was enraged when Ms Macron, 66, failed to invite her to a lunch for former First Ladies at the Elysée Palace in 2019 – and even sent her an angry message to complain.
To add salt to the wound, the lunch was attended by none other than Valerie Trierweiler, Hollande’s former partner whom he very publicly cheated on with Ms Gayet in 2014.
The magazine also reported Ms Gayet referring to Emmanuel Macron as ‘the traitor’ for threatening to cut public funding for her partner’s French-American Foundation.
A feature by French magazine Paris Match revealed that Julie Gayet, 47, the girlfriend of former French President Francois Hollande, was enraged when Brigitte Macron, 66, (right) failed to invite her to a First Ladies dinner party she threw at the Elysée Palace in 2019. Left, Julie Gayet in Paris on January 23 2020, right: Brigitte Macron at the Elysée Palace during the Argentina state visit on February 5
Although Ms Gayet shunned a public role as First Lady, she lived at the Elysée Palace with Hollande until he was ousted by Emmanuel Macron in 2017.
However, Ms Macron chose not to invite her to the lunch with former French First Ladies at the palace.
Guests included Carla Bruni, the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was Head of State from 2007 to 2012, and Valerie Trierweiler, who was dating Francois Hollande from 2007 until his infidelity was exposed in 2014.
Ms Gayet had kept silent at the time, but her absence at the occasion had raised eyebrows among journalists and political watchers, who had wondered why she was not on the guest list.
Julie Gayet (pictured at the Robin Hood premiere in Cannes in May 2010) and François Hollande have been dating since news of their affair broke in 2014, while he was President of France
But behind closed doors, not one to back out from a fight, Ms Gayet apparently addressed the humiliating snub in a text message to the host herself.
The feature also revealed that Ms Gayet did not attend the funeral of former president Jacques Chirac in Paris last year because she ‘could not stand to see the Macrons’.
The sombre event, which took place on September 29, was attended by President Macron and former president Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as numerous French politicians and foreign head of states like Bill Clinton. Francois Hollande attended the funeral, at Les Invalides in the French capital, alone.
The magazine also reported that Ms Gayet referred to Emmnauel Macron as ‘the Traitor’. It read: ‘She cannot stand the way in which they [the Macrons] switched sides and thought about cutting the public funding to Hollande’s foundation, nor the fact they are getting closer to the Sarkozy couple.’
Earlier this week, two Le Monde journalists revealed that the former Head of State Nicolas Sarkozy might have been the one to tip off the press about Hollande’s visits to Ms Gayet while he was still officially dating Valerie Trierweiler.
Fabrice Lhomme and Gérard Davet made the claim during a radio show on Europe I on Tuesday, reported French tabloid Voici.
Two French journalists have revealed that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy tipped them off about the affair between then president François Hollande and actress Julie Gayet in 2013. Pictured: French president François Hollande during a visit by King Carl Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia of Sweden in December 2015
The two men claimed that they were tipped off about Hollande’s infidelity by none other than Nicolas Sarkozy, who summoned them to his offices because he was annoyed with their investigation into allegations of financial irregularity during his 2012 re-election campaign.
Mid-rant, he reportedly told them to ‘look into Hollande’s business’ and added that the president regularly visited a ‘good friend’, despite being in a long-term relationship with author Valerie Treierweiler.
While the two men did not follow through themselves, the news hit the French tabloids three months later, with pictures of Hollande riding a scooter to Ms Gayet’s Parisian apartment, a scandal that no one has forgotten yet.
When the scandal hit, François Hollande had been dating author and journalist Valerie Trierweiler for five years. The couple are pictured visiting the Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial on January 10 2014 (the day the news of the affair broke in France)
‘We go see Nicolas Sarkozy in his offices, we get told off for half an hour – it’s always quite violent,’ recalled Gérard Davet.
‘Then, he says, “You should look into Francois Hollande. Rumour has it he rides a scooter out of the Elysee to see his good friend. Very often,” and bam, three months later it’s in Closer.’
They added that there was a lot of animosity between the rivals, with Hollande unseating Sarkozy in the 2012 election, making him the first incumbent president to lose since 1981.