She may be a looker but ain't too smart

BERLIN

- A German company has canceled a major advertising contract with an Italian-American model/actress after she described her passionate relationship with Moammar Gadhafi's son Muatassim and praised his family.

Telecommunications firm Telefonica Germany and its subsidiary, Alice, will stop working with model Vanessa Hessler, 23, and remove her face from its website, spokesman Albert Fetsch said yesterday.

"Vanessa Hessler has failed to distance herself from her comments on the conflict in Libya," Fetsch said.

Hessler, born to an American father and Italian mother, had been the company's advertising face for years, and giant posters featuring the model were a fixture in many German cities.

Hessler told the Italian magazine Diva e Donna that for four years she had been dating Muatassim Gadhafi, who was captured and killed in Libya alongside his father in October.

"I didn't have any contact with him since the uprising broke out, but our relationship was one of passion," she was quoted as saying by the magazine. "The Gadhafi family is not as they are being depicted; they are normal people."

Hessler also said that she was crying for Libya and that the rebels are "people who don't know what they're doing."

Talks between Telefonica and Hessler's agency did not yield a solution because Hessler stood by her comments, said Fetsch. "We and our clients have no comprehension for what she said."

Her face will be removed from all Alice PR material, he added. Telefonica Germany is a subsidiary of Spain's Telefonica S.A.

In August, Talitha van Zon, another model and ex-girlfriend of Muatassim Gadhafi, was evacuated from Libya to Malta.

In comments to Britain's Telegraph newspaper, van Zon recounted details of her seven-year friendship with Muatassim, including trips to Monaco and St. Bart's, the Caribbean haven for the chic; luxury hotels; and gifts of Louis Vuitton bags.