French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped by his wife during a foreign trip last year after she found steamy messages from a younger actress on his phone, according to a new book by journalist Florian Tardif.
The viral incident, which was caught on cameras as the couple prepared to disembark their plane in Hanoi, Vietnam, in May last year, resulted from messages allegedly sent between Macron and Iranian-born actress Golshifteh Farahani, 42, Tardif claimed in an interview with RTL France.
According to Tardif, whose book "An (Almost) Perfect Couple" was published on Wednesday, one of the messages read: "I find you very pretty." Farahani allegedly maintained a "platonic relationship" with Macron for several months, Le Parisien reported.
"What hurt Brigitte was not so much the contents of the message as what it hinted at: a possibility ... nothing tangible or that could really be denounced but the idea alone ... was enough," reads an extract from the book. "She saw herself being erased," Tardif quoted a friend of the first lady as saying.
Brigitte Macron's representatives denied the account, stating that she "categorically denied this account directly to the author on March 5th, specifying that she never looks at her husband's mobile phone." Farahani has also long denied any relationship with Macron, telling Le Point in March: "I think there is a lack of love for some people and they need to create romances like this to fill the void."
At the time of the incident, Macron's team engaged in damage control, initially suggesting the video could have been AI-generated before insisting it was a playful slap. Macron himself said the couple were "joking around" and urged people to "calm down."
