Russian Celebrity Says Not Involved in Billionaire's Car Accident

Russian TV star Tina Kandelaki denies she was in the car with Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov when he crashed his Ferrari on the Riviera Saturday, Reuters news agency reported Tuesday.A police source in Nice said 31-year-old Kandelaki was treated for minor injuries after businessman Suleiman Kerimov’s black Ferrari slammed into a tree. But the presenter said she was at home all the time with her husband and children.

The French police source confirmed Kandelaki was briefly treated at Saint Roch hospital in Nice on Saturday suffering from slight burns to the legs following the accident on the city’s Promenade des Anglais.

But Kandelaki, who has an untainted public image as a presenter of children’s programmes and host of a popular chat-show “Details”, was determined to tough out the scandal. She told Russian journalists she had been recovering from mumps which stopped her making any public appearances.

Her husband Andrei Kondrakhin a wealthy businessman has contradicted the version Kandelaki presented. He said she really was in France with Kerimov on Saturday but not in the car at the time of the accident.

Kerimov`s condition is still a question at the moment. A hospital spokesman in Marseille said on Monday that he was in a critical condition, suffering from burns.

He is worth $7.1 billion (3.6 billion pounds) according to Forbes magazine, whose annual survey of the world’s richest people put him at No. 72, and made him the 11th richest Russian.