It would certainly make for a great political memoir one day: the story of a Frenchwoman’s climb from cocktail bar waitress to the front steps of Number 10.
Sure, the chances of Nigel Farage’s girlfriend Laure Ferrari, 44, making it to Downing Street might be unlikely for now, but insiders say the former UKIP leader’s latest partner — a petite French national and former player in the populist European political scene who has hobnobbed Donald Trump — dreams of a life with him in Westminster and may even be his secret weapon in this summer’s general election since he announced his late entry to the election race as leader of Reform UK on Monday night.
Ferrari, who is 15 years Farage’s junior and to whom he gave her first job in politics when she was just 28 years old, has certainly not shied away from speaking publicly about her partner’s political aims. “Why would you do that if you didn’t have an ulterior motive in mind?” she told GB News of Farage’s decision to star on I’m A Celebrity back in December, hinting that her boyfriend “might be considering going back to politics at some stage”.
She flew out to Australia to greet him as he exited the jungle a few weeks later, and has been described by friends as a “razor sharp” sounding board for the Brexiteer-in-chief, who celebrated his 60th birthday in April with a bash featuring everything from former PM Liz Truss doing the conga to a virtual appearance from Trump himself. Politicos are already suggesting Ferrari could be a useful tool for Farage as he works to construct an image of a wholesome family man with a stable home life in a bid to woo disenchanted Tory voters ahead of the election. Will we be seeing more of Ferrari on the campaign trail in the coming weeks?
Time will tell, but there is at least one woman unlikely to be delighted by any sightings of Ferrari plastered across TV screens. What Farage's ex-mistress Annabelle Fuller — his former speechwriter who is 17 years his junior and has since changed her name to Trixy Sanderson — thinks about Farage’s latest election bid is not yet known. But she is unlikely to be delighted by any appearances by Ferrari after a fiery run-in with the former waitress at Farage's bedside when he was hospitalised after a plane crash back in 2010, and Ferrari's seemingly-targeted claim in an email that English women are "drunken tarts" a couple of years later. “It’ll be cathartic to see him take on something gross with dirt, bugs and snakes, ideally in an enclosed space underground. He would really hate that," Fuller told reporters ahead of Farage's I’m A Celebrity appearance last year.
Any couples appearances with Ferrari would certainly mark a significant milestone in Farage’s career. The former UKIP leader might be loud about his politics, but he has preferred to keep his love life a little more under wraps, especially in the years since he separated from his second wife, German-born bond broker Kirsten Mehr sometime before 2017.
Around the time the separation was announced, it was reported that Farage was living with right-wing politician Ferrari, 44, who he wooed when she was working as a waitress in Strasbourg in 2007 and went on to hire as his parliamentary assistant later that same year. She later became his 'lodger' because she needed accommodation and had nowhere else to stay, according to Farage. The irony that was Britain's Brexiteer-in-chief leaving his German wife for a Frenchwoman was certainly not lost on the internet meme-machine at the time.
So who is Ferrari, exactly? How long was the affair with Fuller? And what do we know of Farage's two wives, Gráinne Hayes and Kirsten Mehr?
A car crash that resulted in marriage
Farage and his first wife Gráinne Hayes — an Irish nurse — met when they were both in their early twenties when she treated him in hospital after he was run over by a car in November 1985.
“My recovery was a miserable period: I was put on traction — a series of pulleys and weights — but the treatment saved my leg," he told the Telegraph years later, in 2015. “It put paid to any more golf — but I married the nurse who treated me. A cliché, I know, but not only did I get my life back, I got a wife and two fantastic sons.”
The couple married in 1988 and went on to have two sons — Sam, 34, a Dulwich College and Exeter graduate last understood to be working for a major accountancy firm, and Tom, 32, whose last known profession was in City trading — but their marriage did not last.
After just over a decade together, they divorced in 1997. Hayes' last known location was in Rochester, Kent.
Second time unlucky — was politics to blame?
Farage married his second wife Kirsten Mehr — a German government bond broker — in 1999, just two years after his divorce from Hayes.
They are understood to have met in Frankfurt, Germany in 1996 while Farage was travelling on business and Hamburg-born Mehr was working in government. "She was a stunning government bond broker whose brisk efficiency at first sight belied her ethereal appearance," he later told reporters. "She could have stepped into a pre-Raphaelite painting no questions asked."
The couple went on to marry and have two daughters, Victoria, 23, and Isabelle, 18, who both have German passports and are bilingual in English and German. Isabelle's LinkedIn profile lists her as working as an intern at the U.S. House of Representatives, having previously undergone an internship at the House of Commons. She lists her location as Oxted in Surrey and attended Woldingham School in nearby Caterham.
According to reports, Mehr gave up her City job working as an interpreter for a German bank to look after the girls and work as her husband's PA, writing all his emails because he disliked using computers.
"I do a very hard job," she told reporters back in 2014, "and Nigel's a very difficult person to work for". At the time, she admitted that the job required long hours, which she often did wearing a nightie, and that their two daughters didn't see much of their father, who drank and smoked too much. Insiders said she liked to keep a low profile, sitting anonymously in the audience at UKIP party conferences.
According to insiders, Farage and Mehr are still technically married, but have reportedly been separated for the best part of a decade. Even six years ago, in 2017, it was reported that the pair had been living apart "for years" after Mehr was photographed without her wedding ring. She later revealed in a statement that Farage had moved out of the family home in Kent "a while ago" following reports that he was living with another woman.
Farage has since told journalist Rachel Johnson in a radio interview that politics had left him "separated" and "skint". ”I’m not very married at the moment, let’s put it like that. I think separated is my legal status," he said. "I don’t think anything would have survived what I’ve been doing for the past five years.
“Not that I’ve been perfect — I’m not — but it’s been pretty awful. Just hellish, really. I’m talking about the sheer nastiness and aggro that comes with this, that this whole Trotskyite and hard-left movement are now the Remainers. There is no life left. The last time I went out with the family, we were assaulted by 80 people.”
A 12-year affair with an aide, revealed years later
2004. This is the year that Annabelle Fuller — Farage's Oxford-educated speechwriter and trusted adviser, at the time and 17 years his junior — later told reporters that her 12-year affair with Farage started, and the same year Mehr spoke out about working as her husband's PA long into the night.
Ukip “parliamentary researcher” (nudge, nudge) Annabelle Fuller had “12-year affair with Nigel Farage” who is 17 years her senior. I do wonder how she got the job as Ukip “parliamentary researcher” (nudge, nudge) eh?https://t.co/kAttvVFXTD
— John Clarke (@JohnClarke1960) April 21, 2019
Fuller, now 43 and just 24 at the time, finally spoke out publicly in 2017, admitting she'd had an extramarital relationship with the Brexit boss from 2004 until 2016. Among her bombshell claims were that the pair had had sexual encounters in MEP offices in the European Parliament over that time; that Farage had declared his devotion to her with "heart and body" in a secret love letter; and that the affair had sent her into depression, self-harm and even suicide attempts in the ladies' toilet of the European Parliament. Fuller also claimed that Farage's wife Mehr was behind her ejection from the UKIP party in 2014.
Colleagues have since said the affair was an open secret within Westminster circles. "He was thinking about leaving his wife for her... everyone in the party knew they were having an affair," one MEP told reporters at the time.
From a German broker to a Westminster aide to a French waitress
Moving in with Farage as his 'lodger'. Taking the bins out from his £4m Chelsea home. Twerking up against him on a dimly-lit dancefloor at a Brexit anniversary party.
Speculation as to whether French politician Laure Ferrari was in fact Farage's girlfriend has been swirling for years now, ever since he hired the then-28-year-old as his parliamentary assistant in his role as an MEP in 2007 and the pair were seen enjoying a drink at a London pub together before leaving in a chauffeur-driven Range Rover.
Last year it was finally confirmed by Farage's team: Ferrari is indeed the former UKIP leader's girlfriend, but she wouldn’t be travelling to Australia to meet him when he exited the Jungle — or so they claimed at the time. At what point that decision was overturned is not clear, but Ferrari did indeed meet Farage as he exited the jungle in third place before Christmas, saying that her U-turn on going public about their relationship was partly born from a “duty to support him”.
Pictures shows the French politician smiling as she touched down in Brisbane airport, posing on a beach in a pink bikini on Australia's Gold Coast and appearing to fall over as she carried a set of shopping bags after a shopping spree at the Gold Coast's Surfers Paradise. She was later seen chatting to other contestants' loved ones with her arm in a sling after reportedly suffering a minor surfing injury, but appeared sling-free just hours later, smiling in a khaki playsuit as she hugged Farage for the first time in several weeks — a sign many took to mean that the UKIP leader was working on boosting his optics amid plans to launch a political comeback.
The couple's public displays of affection certainly came in stark contrast to their behaviour in the years before. In November, sources close to Farage said he was insistent on keeping his family and romantic life private — much to the disappointment of gossip columnists keen to finally see the couple in public together.
Farage met Ferrari in 2007, back when she was an English graduate working as a waitress in Strasbourg and just three years after Fuller claims her own affair with Farage started. Ferrari had claimed to be uninterested in politics until two years previously, believing it to be the preserve of “old men who sat around talking”, but her interest spiked when France voted no in a referendum on a European constitution in 2005. She ended up befriending former UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom — a fellow Eurosceptic who used to visit the restaurant she worked at and describes her as “bright as a button” — in 2007 and Bloom went onto introduce her to Farage, with whom she reportedly developed an immediate rapport.
Farage went on to appoint Ferrari as a parliamentary assistant in charge of environmental issues in the UK — her first-ever job in politics — and moved her into his three-bedroom west London home as a 'lodger', claiming she had nowhere else to live. It was around this same time that she led a Eurosceptic think tank accused of illegally diverting £400,000 of public funds to UKIP ahead of the UK general election and Brexit referendum.
It was also around this time that she was seen slow-dancing with Farage at a party celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Brexit vote, her reportedly grinding up against him. "There was no question they were a couple," one onlooker said. "Laure was putting on quite a display. She seemed to twerk a bit and was all over Nigel. From the look on his face, he was loving every minute."
That year the pair were seen drinking together at an unnamed London pub, locked in conversation. Reports at the time claimed that Farage's attention was "only on one woman all night", but Farage denied any claims of romance between them. "She is someone I have worked with and known for a long time who wanted somewhere to stay for a week that wouldn't cost her any money," he told reporters in February 2017. "It's a working relationship. You can inflate it however you want to."
War of the mistresses — did Ferrari win?
The same month as Farage and Ferrari's pub outing, it was announced that Farage and his German wife Mehr had been "living separate lives" for several years and that the father-of-four had moved out of the family home in Kent. "This is a situation that suits everyone and is not news to any of the people involved," Mehr told reporters amid rumours that her husband had been having a decade-long affair with Fuller, another aide of his.
Annabelle Sanderson (nee Fuller) on Alex Phillips defection to Cons: "I'm happy cos it's a good day at conference." pic.twitter.com/9O8zL80Wgp
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) September 16, 2016
Why exactly Fuller and Farage's affair came to an end in 2016 is not yet known, but it might have had something to do with another young woman he is believed to have become involved with during their affair: his now-girlfriend Ferrari.
Fuller says she first became aware of Ferrari when she tried to visit Farage in hospital after he was involved in a near-fatal plane crash in 2010. The two-seater plane had been towing a 'Vote UKIP' banner but flipped and nose-dived into a Northamptonshire field. When Fuller tried to visit him in Horton Hospital in Oxford, there were reportedly two other women either there or on their way to see him: his wife Mehr, and a French woman she now knows to be Ferrari, who reportedly barged her out of the way.
"I was shaking with worry by the time I got there [Horton Hospital]. I didn't even make it inside before a woman who said she was his local aide barred my way," Fuller told reporters after the crash. "I'm told that UKIP members were trying to calm her down and move her out the way before Kirsten got there. They definitely didn't want me to meet Laure either."
The bitter battle between Fuller and Ferrari did not stop there. Two years later, in 2012, Ferrari reportedly sent an explosive email to Fuller, branding British women "drunken tarts" who "can put themselves in embarrassing situations with well-known married men whom they kiss in public".
Meanwhile, the email claimed that French women "can be very discreet and respectful hiding a sincere love affair for 3 years and 6 months... not looking for any kind of publicity at all." Fuller reportedly forwarded the email to Farage's office, claiming it was from Ferrari and demanding his team "print out and show to Nigel" after the politician had allegedly accused Fuller of "lying about her".
A (not-so) secret new girlfriend, outed at last
Exactly how the three-woman hospital tussle for Farage panned out is not known, but one woman seems to have come out on top in the years that followed: Ferrari, who is been believed to have been living with Farage ever since 2007, and has held many roles connected with his since then.
Nigel Farage's girlfriend Laure Ferrari's shopping bag breaks after splashing out on a slew of purchases in during his I'm A Celeb stint https://t.co/edLCCVjnqx pic.twitter.com/SslAPP2xoc
— Josiah Williams (@Josiah_FL) December 7, 2023
But despite Ferrari's pointed email to Fuller back in 2012, it was only at the end of last year that Farage publicly admitted to the relationship being a romantic one.
Ferrari claimed the admission was partly born from a “duty to support him” but commentators had other suspicions as insiders claimed Farage was “on manoeuvres” to relaunch his career in frontline politics — suspicions that have now turned out to be correct.
Whether they were watching the couple's public reunion on I’m A Celebrity is not known, but there will certainly have been a few women out there likely to have been enjoying the pain of his Bushtucker Trials. "I’ll definitely be voting for him to do horrible things," Fuller, his former mistress who has since changed her name to Trixy Sanderson, told reporters on his entry into the Jungle last year. "My whole family and all my friends will be voting. I think it’ll be cathartic to see him take on something gross with dirt, bugs and snakes, ideally in an enclosed space underground. He would really hate that.”
Nigel Farage's girlfriend Laure Ferrari, 44, wears her arm in a sling after a surfing accident as she joins the I'm A Celebrity star's loved ones to greet evictee Marvin Humes https://t.co/j47isposcE pic.twitter.com/CktYEG5L6e
— Josiah Williams (@Josiah_FL) December 9, 2023
Fuller also issued a particular warning for Farage's fellow contestant Josie Gibson, from This Morning, at the time. “She’s quite down-to-earth, attractive, blonde and curvy. Exactly his type," said Fuller.
Exactly what changed Ferrari's mind to fly out to Australia and face the cameras will never be known, but perhaps she decided it offered a perfect dress rehearsal for what she and Farage knew would be an increasingly public-facing year.
Any cocktail-bar-waitress-to-Downing-Street memoir might not quite be ready for 2024, given pollsters’ predictions for a landslide Labour win, but with Farage convinced Keir Starmer will fail as Britain’s leader and pledging to stand as Reform leader until 2029, perhaps we will all be seeing a fair bit more of him and Ferrari over the next five years.
