NEW YORK (July 18, 2006) — A 19-year-old former employee of Christie Brinkley’s husband, Peter Cook, says he hired her and seduced her with lavish gifts, then attempted to woo her back with repeated notes and phone calls after she broke off the affair.
Diana Bianchi spoke exclusively Monday to Rosanna Scotto of FOX 5 New York’s WNYW about her alleged affair with the supermodel’s husband.
To check out more of the exclusive interview, click on: MYFOXNY.
In the interview, Bianchi told Scotto that she regrets the affair and claimed that Cook started making advances verbally when Bianchi was 18.
“He used to come in alot more than usual I guess,” Bianchi told Scotto. “That’s what people are telling me so I didn’t notice it until afterwards and then after awhile, business slowed down there, andI needed a new job so he asked me to come work for him, andI didn’t think twice about it. He said he would double my salary.”
“And then how did one thing lead to another?” Scotto asked.
“He just, you know, he would make advances towards me verbally first and then I guess it just escalated to something I didnt expect,” Bianchi said.
Bianchi told Scotto that she was aware of Christie from the beginning.
“I knew he was married,” Bianchi told Scotto. “I mean there were pictures of his family in his office everywhere.I never expected that he would take it to a different level even thoughI had people in my ear telling me different.”
“I’m a little too trusting sometimes,” Bianchi continued.
“Did he say he was going to leave Christie?” Scotto asked.”And that’s why he wanted to start a relationship with you?”
“No, no, no, he didn’t say he was going to leave her,” Bianchi replied. “He just basically left it at he wished things were different. That, you know, he was younger or that he had met me at a different time.
He never promised me that he would leave her. I never asked him to leave her for me. I never was in it for that.I didn’t have any kind of intentions like that.”
The second part of Scotto’s exclusive interview will air Tuesday night on FOX 5.
Bianchi told the New York Post for Tuesday editions that Cook, 47, made advances on her shortly after she took a job at his architecture firm, adding that at the time she was “a little naive.”
The interview appeared less than a week after Brinkley,52, announced through publicist Elliot Mintz that she and Cook, her fourth husband, had separated. They married in 1996 and have a daughter.
In a statement to Access Hollywood, Mintz expanded on his statement: “When I asked about the possibility of a divorce: “I confirmed a ‘separation.’ I never mentioned a divorce.”
Bianchi said she first met Cook when she was a toy store clerk, but he made his intentions clear when she was a year older and his employee, typing in a computer document as she stood by his desk, “How would you feel if I told you I was attracted to you?”
“And I was like, ‘Uh, I dunno,”’ Bianchi said. “I didn’t really answer him. I was kind of thinking, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’ I really didn’t know what to do at that point.”
Bianchi’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, told the Post that the pair had a sexual relationship that spanned about one year. Speaking to The Associated Press, the lawyer described the couple’s relationship as consensual, but claimed Cook’s role as employer and his gifts of a car, money and jewelry could possibly constitute sexual harassment.
A message left for Cook at his Long Island architecture firm Monday was not immediately returned.
Mintz said he had no comment on Bianchi’s claims, which emerged in press reports Monday, though he told the Post he did not believe Brinkley and the teenager had met.
Brinkley is “just a woman who at this moment is completely preoccupied with the protection of her children, trying to isolate them from all of this coverage, and trying to heal,” he said.
In Mintz’statement to Access, Mintz reiterated Christie’s attention to her children’s welfare:
“I can confirm that she is not on the East Coast but I am not able to tell you where she is…except to say she is with her children.”
Tacopina said that Bianchi, an aspiring singer, quit her job at Cook’s firm within a few months after she started in May 2005 because, Tacopina said, she felt uncomfortable.
“Being put in the position that (Cook) put her in, which was to be financially dependent on him … as long as she provided sex — that’s the relationship that the law frowns upon when you’re an employer and an employee,” he said.
Tacopina said he had no immediate plans for a law suit.
Brinkley was previously married to Jean-Francois Allaux, singer Billy Joel and developer Richard Taubman.
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