Labor

NO IDEA: What Michelle Chantelois is willing to do for $200,000

We shelled out our $4 to buy New Idea to read about Michelle Chantelois’s supposed confessions of infidelity, alongside what promises to be the ‘best-ever chocolate cake’, a riveting account of the hot new bod of Lisa Curry-Kenny, a seemingly rather unrealistic campaign to bring Schapelle Corby home by Christmas, yet more news on the state of Tom Cruise’s marriage, the touching tale of Australia’s oldest twins (they’re 99!), no fewer than eight pages on a TV show we’d never heard of Rafters, pages and pages of frocks, briefing notes on how to have great summer hair (skipped that), a LOT of advertorial, a stunningly useful guide to how to eat junk food and ’still lose weight’ (cut that out of course).

We learned some important new facts including that pregnant women shouldn’t eat hummus and that psychics have a thriving and highly competitive marketplace going on. Who knew?

But here’s the Michelle Chantelois New Idea interview unabridged and unedited, freshly scanned and analysed on the fly by VEXNEWS for your entertainment. Is Michelle Chantelois a lying skank or just a skank? We’ll probably never know but we’re keen to milk the whole salacious disgrace-athon for as much traffic as we can.

Enjoy.

Power, politics and passion

Headline: ‘My affair with the South Australian Premier’ (VEXNEWS: Does putting it in quotes make it safer legally. We don’t think so. A bit like saying Michelle Chantelois is a ‘two-bit ho’)

A mother-of-two reveals how she was seduced by the politician (VEXNEWS: LOL, the ’seduction’ (if you believe it occurred and we don’t) involved him saying to her I’d like you to come back to my office so I can kiss you. How easy. Perhaps she’s easy.)

Michelle Chantelois admits she is naive, but she thought nothing of it when South Australian Premier Mike Rann started popping in to see her in the dining room at Parliament House in Adelaide where she worked in silver service. (VEXNEWS: Or was a barmaid, if you prefer)

They would chat as she served dinner or a drink from the bar and when he left for the evening he would swing by to say goodbye.

But one day in mid-2003 as they chatted in the hallway, the Premier pulled out a business card, wrote down his mobile phone number on it and urged Michelle to call him. (VEXNEWS: She’s naive OK, but to discuss what the price of stroganoff in the dining room. Give us a break. She plays dumb but it’s us she must think is real dumb)

‘I was flattered by the attention and I have to admit there was some chemistry between us, but I had no intention of doing anything because I was married,’ recalls the pretty 39 year-old mother-of-two. (VEXNEWS: And isn’t a shame for everyone that it didn’t end there?)

But a couple of months later when the Premier dropped by the dining room and asked if she’d like to come back to his office for a kiss, she says she felt compelled. (VEXNEWS: By what on Earth could have ‘compelled’ her other than the dawkish, earnest charms of the fifty-something? This story really is very strange in many ways. Which is at the heart of why we smell a rat with it. It’s worth noting at this point she’s married and he’s not.)

‘I knew it was wrong but I was attracted to him,’ she says. (VEXNEWS: Quite the role model parent this one. Is there an Adelaide equivalent of Moe?)

‘He took me to his office and kissed me on the lips. It felt awkward and I was nervous. Nothing else happened but I was ashamed and wanted get out of there. (VEXNEWS: She felt ashamed for cheating on her husband, she reckons. That’s good. But this butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth mama didn’t let her shame get the better of her it seems.)

Looking back, Michelle wishes more than anything that she’d declined that kiss. It was the catalyst for an intense 18 month affair that included sex sessions on the Premier’s desk in Parliament House, snatched meetings while parliament was in session and passionate trysts in a car at a golf course. (VEXNEWS: An exhausting list but we wonder whether it’s possible to have a ‘tryst’ in a car.)

The secret affair destroyed her 15 year marriage (VEXNEWS: Apparently reconciliation is on the cards if Michelle keeps obeying her psychopath ex’s instructions by punishing Rann for his Rick Phillips’ crime) broke up her family and left her on the brink of suicide.

She’s adamant she doesn’t want sympathy and takes full responsibility for what she calls her ‘bad behaviour’. (VEXNEWS: Really? Full responsibility seems to include taking a reported $200,000 from Seven/New Idea to brag about it. Doesn’t sound the ‘full responsibility’ her parents hopefully told her about.)

But as she tries to knit back the threads of her tatterd life, she wants to expose the man she says groomed (VEXNEWS: Oh excuse me while we barf – ‘groomed’!!!) and seduced her then dropped her ‘like a hot potato.’  (VEXNEWS: She is so keen to play the victim here that really is nauseating. Getting a life and stopping an obsession with a person she hasn’t spoken with in years that might mean taking ‘full responsibility’ for one’s life.)

‘I don’t want people to feel sorry for me because I made my bed and I have to lie in it,’ (VEXNEWS: Or golf buggy as the case may be) she says, tears pooling in her eyes.

‘But Mike Rann used me to stroke his own ego and pride and unlike me he’s suffered no consequences. (VEXNEWS: LOL, yeh except being gossiped about, having his happy marriage undermined, lied about and then being physically attacked by her angry psychopath ex-husband. Oh and then this national TV bombshell. Yeh other than that Rann’s got off lightly.)

‘He has shown poor judgement and hasn’t shown me any loyalty or friendship.’ (VEXNEWS: Poor judgment? By doing what? Trying to keep a safe distance. By being the victim of her psycho ex’s criminal attacks?)

‘I don’t think he should be Premier – it’s time he took responsibility for his actions.’ (VEXNEWS: And this it seems is the political bottom line. Neither bimbo nor her psycho ex want Mike Rann to be Premier. Well that’s all very nice. We could easily ask the next Jerry Springer guests whether they want Mike Rann to be Premier as well. Their opinions would be just as worthy of note. We doubt many votes will swing on the bimbo’s endorsement of the SA Libs.)

There’s no denying that the 56 year old politician, who has two children from a previous marriage is a popular premier.

His approval ratings have been among the highest in the country and at his wedding to actress Sasha Curruozzo in 2006, former Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke and former NSW Premier Bob Carr were among guests.

When questioned about the nature of his relationship with Michelle recently, he maintained, they’re just friends. He told Radio FIVEaa ‘I’ve known her for years. She worked at Parliament House. Terrific person, great mother you know and she became a friend (VEXNEWS: Hang on, didn’t she complain he wasn’t a loyal friend. That sounds like a pretty loyal friend’s description. Shame she didn’t return the favour.)

‘It was far more than a friendship’ reveals American born Michelle, who now works as a receptionist at a high school. (VEXNEWS: She apparently recently found out they wouldn’t be extending her contract. Natch, she’s blaming it on the vast SA government conspiracy.)

‘I had left my job at Parliament House in late 2003 after we kissed but we talked frequently by phone. When I said I was coming to drop off my uniform he asked me to come to his office.’ (VEXNEWS: Still feeling ‘compelled’ she’d have us believe)

‘When I got there he grabbed me and pinned me against the door and began kissing me with his tongue.’ (VEXNEWS: Oh dear)

‘Then he guided me to his desk and sat me on top of his desk and dropped his trousers and had sex with me. It was mutual and I was not suprised. (VEXNEWS: Well we’re surprised this mother of two is spreading such musings with the world. It’s sickening really. I suppose we can only be grateful she didn’t invent a claim of rape while she was at it.)

On another occasion the pair arranged to meet near the rest rooms outside the chamber, which was in session. But they had to abort their plans for intimacy when other people disturbed them.

‘He went to the one bathroom and I went to another and we laughed about afterwards,’ Michelle recalls.

Over the following months, the pair had a passionate phone and text relationship, often contacting each other 10 times a day. Michelle says: ‘Once he texted me to says he’d had an argument with Sasha and how he would like to satisfy me sexually.’ (VEXNEWS: Not usually an effective pick-up line, we wouldn’t have thought)

‘He would fantastise about what I could wear for him and he asked me what my measurements were so he could buy me sexy bras and panties. He also told me to watch Unfaithful because he loved the scene where the married woman and her lover have steamy sex in the bathroom. He said he fantasised about doing that with me.’ (VEXNEWS: This really does sound like the imaginings of a woman who spends too much time in Blockbuster and too much time watching romcoms and reading Mills&Boon but whatever)

Another time the Premier invited her to his house in the suburb of Norwood. She says ‘When I arrived he guided me to a yellow leather lounge and lay on top of me and started kissing me passionately. I felt ashamed (again!) so I went to the bathroom and washed my face and went home.’

Sometimes they met in public. Once while having a coffee in Adelaide Central Market, one of the soccer mums from Michelle’s son’s team walked by, she recalls. (VEXNEWS: So what, Rann was friendly with this person, he’s conceded that.)

On another occasion in March 2005 before he announced the engagement to Sasha, the Premier invited her to his office. Once there, he moved the table and chairs aside so they could have sex on the floor.

‘We were both naked and it was much more intense and passionate than the first time we had done it in his office,’ she says. (VEXNEWS: Practice makes perfect)

Michelle’s mother, who was visiting from America at the time and knew about her daughter’s relationship still has a diary entry from that day, detailing Michelle’s visit to the Premier’s office (VEXNEWS: Ahem. So she told her mum all about it. Or made it up and told her. Fine. And her mum then wrote down all the slutty details in her own diary. What would possess her to do that other than setting the stage for a future trailer trash slimedown shakedown. How disgusting. The skank gene has clearly run down the maternal line here.)

Michelle says the Premier was constantly saying she must not tell anyone and coaching her on how to cover her tracks. He asked her to book hotels for them but she refused, and urged her not to have sex with her husband for three days prior to them meeting.

One evening in January 2005, they drove to an area near the North Adelaide golf course and fondled each other in the car.

Michelle says nothing excuses her behaviour (VEXNEWS: Although the $200k has made her feel better than giving it out for free), but her warmth and closeness she’d enjoyed with her husband had deteriorated because he was under work-related stress. (VEXNEWS: Or was a violent psychopath, depending on what gossip you believe)

‘Things were very prickly between my husband and me so, if I’m honest, I enjoyed the attention from someone else,’ she says. ‘My conversations with Mike Rann were making me feel a lot better.’

So she was falling in love? (VEXNEWS: Not so much that her trailer trash mama wasn’t keepin’ diary notes for safe-keepin’ in case Jerry Springer came a callin’)

‘I was falling under his spell,’ she says. (VEXNEWS: In dark cape, Rann does like like a warlock. Possibly her most sensible claim so far)

‘The relationship was intoxicating. It was like a drug and I was addicted. I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t stop doing it.’ (VEXNEWS: The man’s mojo knows no bounds she wants us to believe. We must inquire as to his choice of aftershave.)

She says she tried to break off the relationship several times, especially when he announced in May 2005 that he was engaged to Sasha, who he had been dating for four years. ‘He would tell me I was part of his rally team and he needed my support,’ she reveals.

The affair came to a head when Michelle’s husband caught her sending a text message to the Premier in late 2005.

‘I tried to lie and say I was texting my girlfriend but he was suspicious and went through my phone bills and found all the calls the Mike’s number,’ she says.

Michelle says she told the Premier, who came up with an idea that would make their relationship look innocent. (VEXNEWS: Or indeed demonstrate that it was)

‘He said he’d get Sasha to call my mobile phone and leave a message inviting my husband and me to a house party on the weekend. She did leave a message and I played it to my husband but he was unconvinced.’ (VEXNEWS: She presumably is saying she didn’t attend the house party with her husband although that is unexplored by Angela Mollard the New Idea reporter assigned to do the story after her publisher had forked out the cash)

Michelle and her husband had counselling, but she refused to admit to the affair. She moved out of the family home in late 2007. (VEXNEWS: Again unexplored is why she moved out, normally it’s the other way around isn’t it? Especially when kids are involved. But perhaps that would involve the psycho ex not getting his way and it seems that doesn’t happen a lot)

So why has she finally come clean about the relationship? She says ‘It’s ruined my life and I couldn’t go to my grave with these lies.’ (VEXNEWS: Oh puh-lease, spare us the melodrama)

‘My actions have destroyed my husband’s life.’ (VEXNEWS: No, her husband’s actions have landed him in trouble with the law, if you attack people with rolled-up newspapers that’s usually what happens.)

‘I wanted my husband to know the truth.’ (VEXNEWS: A phone call wouldn’t have cut it?)

‘I still love him but everything is too raw right now for us to consider moving forward together.’ (VEXNEWS: Again unexplored is whether Rick Phillips instructed his wife to make it up to him by selling her story denouncing Rann. It’s probably the most important unanswered question here)

She cries, as she says her sons, aged 11 and 18 (VEXNEWS: Ouch, why, why, why is she doing this to them is another area unexplored in this ‘tell-all interview’) were shocked and angry but have forgiven her.

On the surface, Michelle’s beautifully groomed and well spoken but admits the affair and its aftermath nearly destroyed her.

‘Afterwards I felt stipped bare,’ she says. ‘I was depressed and irrational and even considered taking my own life. But my brother committed suicide so I know how painful it is for the loved ones you leave behind. I love my children and couldn’t do that to them.’ (VEXNEWS: But you could humiliate yourself in front of the nation so that all their schoolmates could see it? There’s surely a missing ingredient in this bizarre conduct and we’d wager it’s angry Rick Phillips bullying her on to do it to ’save their marriage.’ What a pig.)

She says she has made the biggest mistake of her life but telling the truth to those she loves has brought some relief. (VEXNEWS: Again, this is the subject of family dinners not $200,000 pay to slay interviews)

‘I feel sadness, remorse and shame, but I wasn’t the only one at fault,’ she says. ‘It’s time Mike Rann admitted what he did and faced the consequences. (VEXNEWS: It seems the overwhelming reaction to Chantelois’s claims was disgust as reflected in online comments and Adelaide talkback radio. The consequences are personal pain, public humiliation and physical attacks for befriending a person he met on staff at Parliament.)

TIME TO SHOWER AND PONDER
Having read all that filth, it does make us ponder whether it matters at all whether Ms Michelle Chantelois is lying or not.

She emphatically says they had sex.

The Premier this afternoon has just as emphatically denied it.

But even if it’s true, so what?

The barmaid cum school receptionist reckons Mike Rann ought not be Premier. She entitled to vote her own way of course. But there has not been a single allegation of impropriety, wrongdoing or misconduct that relates to any of the public duties Rann has as Premier. Not one.

So we don’t really get what she’s going on about.

Unless, and this is widely believed in government adviser circles, you believe that it’s angry Rick Phillips, the cuckold, pulling all the strings here. It makes his earlier threats that Rann had ‘nothing to fear’ if Rann hadn’t done the dirty on him very clear. Phillips, feeling powerless and cuckolded, has lashed out using the only means he knew, physical violence.

It’s safe to assume there were many other issues in the Phillips-Chantelois’s marriage, which should be their business. Sadly they’ve made all the private little lunacies and fears very public indeed.

Phillips is worried about going to jail for his vicious and frenzied attack on the Premier.

He wants as much muck flying as possible to somehow help him with his case. He might even think he can escape charges if he can bully Rann into withdrawing his complaint. We doubt that will happen.

Of course, his motivation in attacking Rann, in the most cowardly ambush, doesn’t offer him any escape from the consequences of his actions. If he’s judged guilty, he could well be sent to jail.

Not a pleasant prospect. And clearly a great motivator for Michelle Chantelois as she clings desperately to her story and her broken marriage.

Hopefully she can get her act together. But the signs are not encouraging. She has behaved disgracefully, at best revealing personal business that should have remained so. More likely, she’s lied about the whole thing to help her rampaging, psycho ex/husband escape the consequences of his outrageous and violent behaviour. Either way she’s not put her kids first in all this and while we can be light on the judgmental sauce in this recipe, few in the public seemed to accept the reasoning for her blurting and very few think she’s acted appropriately as the mother of two boys who don’t need all their mates to know how much of a low-life their mother has proven herself to be.

Was it really worth the reported $200,000? In some ways, it’s Channel Seven that’s cheated her. Michelle Chantelois may have gained the cheque but she has lost her soul.

© 2009 VEXNEWS 2010©.