Who is Golshifteh Farahani? Actress who Emmanuel Macron texted
Messages Iranian actress said to be the reason for Brigitte Macron slapping husband
France’s first lady has denied reports that the commotion between her and her husband Emmanuel Macron, on a plane was fuelled by him texting the actress Golshifteh Farahani.
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Brigitte Macron was caught swiping at the French president disembarking from a flight in Hanoi last year, an incident which the pair brushed off as “simply joking”.
"We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife,” Mr Macron said at the time, although the video did also show him trying to take the arm of the first lady and being rebuffed.
This week, Paris Match journalist Florian Tardif wrote in a book that Ms Macron had “lost her temper” when she saw that her husband had been texting the Iranian actress.
“What happened is that she saw a message from a well-known figure Golshifteh Farahani,” Mr Tardif told RTF radio.
He added that Mr Macron had had a “platonic” relationship with Farahani “for a few months”, he alleged, but he claimed “that is no longer the case”.
He said the messages “went quite far”, with one allegedly reading: “I find you very pretty.”
Farahani has previously denied rumors of a relationship with Mr Macron but has not commented on the allegations made by Mr Tardif.
Who is Golshifteh Farahani?
Golshifteh Farahani, 42, is an Iranian actress who has resided in Paris since 2009 and been a critic of the regime of her home country.
For Western audiences, she is best known for playing Laura, the wife of Adam Driver’s eponymous Paterson in the 2016 Jim Jarmusch film.
She has also had smaller roles in the 2008 film Body of Lies, directed by Ridley Scott, in which she starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.
She was also seen in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel Salazar's Revenge in 2017 as Shansa. Before her overseas breakthrough, Farahani had a large body of work in her native Iran, most notably the 2009 film About Elly, directed by her almost-namesake Asghar Farhadi.
Born in Tehran, her appearance in Body of Lies led to her being criticised by the Iranian regime, which led to her moving to Paris in 2009 and gaining French citizenship.
She had been the first Iranian actress to appear in a Hollywood film since the 1979 revolution and had been blacklisted at that point for not wearing a headscarf to the premiere.
She further enraged conservative Tehran authorities when her breast was shown in the French comedy Si Tu Meurs, Je Te Tue - and she told the Guardian that a state officer had visited and threatened her father in Iran.
She said of the situation: "I hate politics. It is not my job. As always, something you do for nothing becomes political. I knew it would be difficult. But I am living in France now, I have to work here, and either I am living here or I am not.”
Farahani has twice been married, to Amin Mahdavi from 2003 to 2011, and to Christos Dorje Walker from 2015 to 2018.