The Model and Mutassim Gadhafi

Given what we now know about Moammar Gadhafi’s obscene fortune, it’s not surprising to hear that his son, Mutassim — the one who died on the same day as his father — had lavish spending habits, or that he liked to spread the wealth while courting models. One runway-ready paramour of Gadhafi the younger, Dutch mannequin Talitha van Zon, even coaxed him to tell her how much he dropped: $2 million. A month.

Meanwhile, German model Vanessa Hessler managed to shock her way out of a lucrative advertising campaign with telecom giant Telefónica Germany by oversharing in an interview with the Italian magazine Diva e Donna. She called her four-year relationship with Mutassim a “very beautiful love story.” Right. But Hessler apparently crossed the line of corporate propriety when she described the Gadhafi clan as “normal people.” She also let fly with some ill-chosen words about the Libyan opposition while she was at it, thus ensuring she won’t be a poster girl over there anytime soon either. –KA

The Daily Beast:

The model’s relationship with the dictator’s son flew largely under the radar—until she gave an interview to the Italian magazine Diva e Donna. “The Gaddafi family is not how they are being depicted, they are normal people,” she said. “I didn’t have contact with him since the uprising broke out, but our relationship was one of passion.” She called her four-year relationship with Mutassim a “very beautiful love story.” In the Italian interview, Hessler is described as “crying for Libya,” and she told the magazine that the rebels are “people who don’t know what they’re doing.”

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