Brazilian impresario said to be biological dad of Carla Bruni, Sarkozy’s mate

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Life has been rocky lately for Maurizio Remmert, Italian expat, bon vivant, businessman and resident of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for more than three decades.

‘I never wanted notoriety,’’ he told the Brazilian daily O Estado do Sao Paulo this month. ‘My daughter is an artist, a public person. I am not.... I cultivated 61 years of a discreet life, and now everything has been transformed into a hell.’’

His biological daughter, he says, is none other than Carla Bruni, supermodel-turned-pop-star and prospective first lady of France, constant companion of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Remmert told the Brazilian newspaper that Bruni is the love child (born 40 years ago) of his relationship back in Turin, Italy, with Bruni’s mother. She was married at the time to Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, the late Italian tire tycoon who reared the femme fatale-to-be as his own.

Bruni has been aware of her biological dad for some time and the two are in touch, Remmert said. Remmert, reportedly a millionaire in the food import-export business, says Bruni’s recent notoriety avec Sarkozy has prompted the press to besiege him at home and on his cellphone, while publicizing sundry lies. He says he decided to set the record straight with the respected Brazilian newspaper. The story has circulated on the Web and in press accounts (here’s a piece from London’s Daily Mail). But there is no word yet from Bruni.

-- Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires