Today, Naomi Campbell told a war crimes tribunal in The Hague that after a dinner in 1997, some men knocked on the door of her room in the middle of the night and handed her a pouch of uncut diamonds.
“I wasn’t sure who they were,” Ms. Campbell testified. She didn’t immediately look inside; she went back to bed. But when she open the pouch in the morning, she saw “small, dirty-looking stones.”
According to ABC News, Ms. Campbell arrived at the courthouse in Leidschendam wearing “a demure cream two-piece outfit” — from Azzedine Alaia’s spring/summer collection! — with a silver necklace designed to ward off the “evil eye.” Press coverage also noted that she “wore her hair in a French twist” and sported “minimal makeup.”
“I didn’t really want to be here,” she said. “I just want to get this over with and get on with my life, this is a big inconvenience for me.”
She called the diamonds “kind of dirty-looking pebbles” and said, “I’m used to seeing diamonds shiny and in a box.”
At breakfast, Mia Farrow and Ms. Ms. Campbell’s former model agent, Carole White, told Campbell that the diamonds must have been a gift from Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia. Taylor has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War. Though Ms. White has insinuated that Campbell sat next to Charles Taylor and flirted with him at the party, Ms. Campbell denies this and claims she was seated between Nelson Mandela, the guest of honor, and Quincy Jones. (She also insisted: “When I am in Mr. Mandela’s presence, Mr. Mandela is my focus.” And says that Ms. White is “someone I no longer trust and no longer work with.”)
(Theory: Charles Taylor wanted to get Ms. Campbell’s attention. Impress Ms. Campbell. And sleep with her.)
Naomi Campbell also told those assembled: “I had never heard of Charles Taylor before, never heard of the country Liberia before, had never heard the term ‘blood diamonds.'”
Model Tells Court: Not Clear Gift Was Diamonds [ABC News]
Naomi Campbell Admits Receiving ‘Dirty’ Diamonds, Calls Testifying At Trial An ‘Inconvenience’ [ABC News]
Naomi Campbell Testifies At Blood-Diamond Trial, Says She Was Given Rocks [NY Post]