Vanessa Perroncel: Don’t Believe Everything You Read

You know how this works by now. You ask, we give. And ever since ‘Bridge/Terrygate’ broke you’ve, somewhat unpatriotically, been clamouring for Vanessa Perroncel, the 34-year-old French swimwear model at the centre of the scandal that many think ruined England’s World Cup campaign. The furore that saw John Terry fired as England’s captain and prompted Wayne Bridge to cross his ex-Chelsea teammate off his list of ‘people he’d invite to Nando’s’.

So here she is, in her finery, recovering from being savaged by the tabloids over an alleged affair with Terry. Yes: alleged. Every single thing that was written was merely alleged. So cast aside your preconceptions, while VP strips off and sets the record straight.

Read FHM India in the digital libraryEvery issue, every shoot, on TCG Media.

“He was my friend,” she states, her skin shining with the residue of baby oil from the shoot. “I’d known him for eight years. I split up from Wayne and he was there for me. I said it wasn’t true, but no one wanted to know. I was supposed to have had sex with him five times a week. It’s just horrid.”

Yes, you read that correctly. Despite the court order almost preventing the story coming out, despite Bridge ignoring Terry’s outstretched hand and refusing to play in the same England team as him, Perroncel’s denying anything went on whatsoever, and is fighting back by suing the papers who made the allegations.

“I’ve sued loads of them,” she reveals. “Six in total, all for breach of privacy and defamation, I mean, it’s not true, nothing is true.” She calls them “sharks” and “morally and emotionally bankrupt”, which seems fair enough when you revisit headlines like ‘JT girl’s flings with 5 Chelsea stars’ (The Sun) and ‘Vanessa Perroncel is a she-devil in John Terry’s dirty game’ (Daily Mirror).

“They came down on me like vultures,” continues the girl who lives in leafy Surrey with her and Bridge’s three-year-old son Jaydon Jean Claude. “They started saying that John paid me. I never got a penny from him. But they want to believe that I’m a gold digger.” She adds: “If some dumb arses are stupid enough to believe all these lies, then, whatever. I can’t be bothered with those people. You just have to prove them wrong, I guess.”

So now, while Wayne Bridge chooses between the BBC and ITV and John Terry takes orders from Steven Gerrard, Perroncel is fighting back by doing what she’s does best. Namely: looking very hot while wearing not very much. “FHM is a lovely magazine,” says the girl who was discovered in Paris, age 14. “You make the girls look amazing, so I wanted to shoot for you. Plus, modelling is my job.”

A job, we think you’ll agree, she’s good at. And one she did while backing both France and England in the World Cup.

“I can support both, can’t I?” she giggles. “I’ve lived here for 11 years so consider myself half and half. I kept an eye on it, but I don’t watch too much. You get bitter, you know, about the way things will be reported. And anyway, if things go badly, who are they going to blame?”

Vanessa Perroncel
Age: 34
From: Bandol, Côte d’Azur, Southern France
Scared of: Spiders, snakes
Best accent: “Irish is quite sexy”
Drink: Slippery nipple: sambuca and Baileys
Dinner: Thai green curry
Breakfast: Baguette, butter and coffee

From the August 2010 issue of FHM India.