Born in Turin, she grew up in France from the age of five and later attended boarding school in Switzerland. She eventually returned to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at 19 to become a model full-time. Her mother and father were musicians and they inspired her to become a musician also.

Heiress to Italian tire manufacturing Pirelli fortune, Bruni signed with City Models at age 19 and her career began. Paul Marciano, president and creative director of Guess? Inc., came across her picture among a stack of composite cards of aspiring models and chose her to model with Estelle Hallyday in ad campaigns for Guess? jeans. Bruni subsequently worked for a number of designers and fashion houses, such as Christian Dior, Paco Rabanne, Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Yves Saint-Laurent, Chanel, Versace, and others. By the 1990s, Bruni was among the 20 highest-paid fashion models, earning $7.5 million a year. While modeling, Bruni became a tabloid staple by dating rock stars Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger; tycoon Donald Trump; and actor Kevin Costner.

In 1997, Bruni quit the world of fashion, and has since devoted herself to music. She sent her lyrics to Julien Clerc in 1999, based on which he composed seven tracks on his 2000 album Si j'étais elle.

Bruni, after living with Jean-Paul Enthoven, fell in love and started an affair with his son, philosophy professor Raphaël Enthoven, which caused Raphaël to divorce novelist Justine Lévy, daughter of philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. The affair and the subsequent ending of her marriage were the inspiration for Justine Lévy's best-selling book Rien de grave ("Nothing serious"), published in 2004. In the book, Lévy paints a vitriolic portrait of "Paula", the female who steals the protagonist's husband, as "a praying mantis" with "a Terminator smile".

Bruni and Raphaël Enthoven were subsequently married and had a son, Aurélien, born 2001. They have since separated.

In 2002, her debut album Quelqu'un m'a dit, produced by Louis Bertignac, was released in Europe to great success. Three songs from the album appear in Hans Canosa's 2005 American film Conversations with Other Women. The song "Le plus beau du quartier" was used in H&M's Christmas 2006 commercial.

In 2006, Bruni recorded "Those Little Things" an English-language translation of the Serge Gainsbourg song "Ces Petits Riens", for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. She participated in the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics, in a parade section paying tribute to the Italian flag.

Her second album, No Promises containing poems by Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Auden, Dorothy Parker, Walter de la Mare, and Christina Rosetti, set to music, was released in January 2007.

As of the end of 2007, she is reported to be in a relationship with French president Nicolas Sarkozy after photographers took pictures of them visiting Disneyland Resort Paris, as well as during a vacation in Luxor, Egypt during the Christmas holidays. However, President Sarkozy's office would not comment on the relationship. A flurry of pictures and newspaper stories confirming the relationship have since emerged on December 27, 2007.

--Wikipedia