Arcuri blasts Prime Minister for treating her like ‘one night stand’
US tech entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri has accused the Prime Minister of casting her aside “like a gremlin” and treating her as “some fleeting one night stand”.
Arcuri addressed the Prime Minister directly in an interview with ITV’s Exposure on Sunday evening over their alleged relationship.
“I’ve kept your secrets, and I’ve been your friend… I don’t understand why you’ve blocked me and ignored me as if I was some fleeting one night stand or some girl that you picked up at a bar because I wasn’t – and you know that,” she told ITV’s John Ware.
“I’m terribly heartbroken by the way that you have cast me aside like I am some gremlin,” she added.
The pair’s relationship has raised eyebrows after it was revealed that Arcuri’s tech businesses were awarded £126,000 in public money. She was also granted access to three foreign trade trips led by Boris Johnson while he was London mayor, despite failing to qualify as a delegate.
A City Hall investigation into their relationship has been postponed until after the General Election following a request by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
Meanwhile, a government review ruled the six-figure grant awarded to Arcuri by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was “appropriate”, and rebutted claims of potential conflicts of interest for the Prime Minister.
However, Arcuri on Sunday divulged details over their close relationship, and revealed that Johnson had told her he was “worried” about questions their relationship might raise regarding his personal “interest.”
“That was my fight with Boris. [It] was always, ‘Validate me, tell them, validate me.’ ‘No, no, now I have to declare an interest.’ He didn’t want to have to deal with all the questions around me,” she said.
Johnson has spoken at four separate business events to promote Arcuri’s entrepreneurial interests since meeting her in 2012. He has also been obliged to register a comprehensive list of personal interests with City Hall nine times during that period, and failed to mention Arcuri on a single occasion.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to comment on the alleged affair between him and Arcuri.
Last night, the American businesswoman blasted Johnson for ignoring phone calls she placed to him shortly after he took up office as Prime Minister.
“When I expressed the interest to want to speak to him, I was told there are bigger things at stake and I was brushed off as if I was one of Kennedy’s girlfriends showing up to his White House switchboard,” she said.
Referring to her treatment over the last few months, Arcuri said: “I felt so disgusted and humiliated…I am the collateral damage that’s left behind… I mean the Prime Minister hasn’t been affected. He puts his head in the sand and looks the other way.”
A Conservative spokesman said all claims of impropriety in office were “untrue and unfounded”.
Image credit: ITV