A notorious Premier League cult hero had no qualms telling the world that he twice bedded a hooker who infamously had an alleged threesome with Wayne Rooney.
Mario Balotelli remains one of the greatest enigmas in football history. The Italian maverick was capable of the ridiculous and the sublime on and off the pitch – winning trophies galore but driving managers and fans to distraction with his ludicrous antics. Balotelli, who turned 36 this week, is now coining it in playing for Al-Ittifaq in the United Arab Emirates. But he was formerly a £25million loose cannon at Manchester City, who could always be counted on to fill front and back pages of tabloids.
The ex-Inter Milan striker – who even Jose Mourinho couldn’t control – had fights with then City manager Roberto Mancini and several team-mates, while he also got caught smoking in the showers at the club’s training ground. He threw a dart at a youth team player, made a surprise visit to a local school to enthral pupils, and let off fireworks in his own bathroom on the eve of a Manchester derby at Old Trafford, in which he scored the opening goal in a 6-1 battering of United, then unfurled an iconic shirt bearing the message “why always me?” And his bedroom behaviour was just as controversial.
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Back in April 2012, a month before he would lift the Premier League title with Manchester City, and a month after he had emerged from a Liverpool strip club in the early hours of the morning – breaking a club curfew on the eve of a match against Bolton – the defiant forward again shocked football fans.
Balotelli publicly confessed to cheating on his girlfriend, the gorgeous Italian showgirl, singer and model Raffaella Fico. The then-21-year-old striker decided to come clean about sleeping with Bolton prostitute Jenny Thompson at his £3million Cheshire mansion, rather than pay “hush money”.
Balotelli spoke out as his then lawyer, Vittorio Rigo, revealed that a woman – not Jenny – had offered a “financial alternative” to details of his romp emerging. A deal which the flamboyant Italian forward flatly rejected.
Instead Balotelli, who had been dating Italian model Raffaella since the summer of 2011, insisted he would prefer to “admit what has happened” and “deal with the consequences”.
His then agent, Mino Raiola, said in a statement: “Mario is a young and impulsive football player and as such he is an easy target for tabloids looking for stories and people seeking to benefit from being associated with him.”
Raiola added: “Lately I feel that the chase has become more purposeful and women, in particular, are targeting Mario looking to make money from him directly or by selling stories to newspapers.
“In this regard, we therefore wish to confirm that Mario has had a brief involvement with Miss Jennifer Thompson, a well-known figure amongst tabloid readers in England.
“Mario prefers to admit what has happened, has refused any means on offer to try to keep the matter silent and will deal with any consequences his actions bring in the way of public attention.
“However, he prefers to deal with his personal life in private and had told those close to him about this situation prior to any suggestion of this matter becoming public.”
The Mirror reported at the time how Jenny had told friends she had joined Balotelli at his luxury home while his girlfriend was away, after they had both gone to his younger brother Enoch’s birthday party at a swanky Manchester nightclub.
Jenny confided: “When we were in his house and Mario asked me if I wanted to go to the bedroom. He didn’t waste much time. Before I knew it we were in his bed and having sex.”
One of her pals told the Mirror that the pair first became friendly in the city’s upmarket Zouk bar and Indian restaurant around the end of February 2012, when Jenny swapped BlackBerry Messenger contact details with one of the young footballer’s friends.
Following the birthday party, the friend claimed Jenny joined several other people at Mario’s mansion, adding: “He invited lots of people to keep on partying back at his home.
“Jenny was among a group that went back, and it was there that the two of them first got intimate. It wasn’t like with Rooney – no money changed hands, it wasn’t that sort of meeting, and she left early next day.”
The friend added they had another intimate moment around a week later, after Jenny went to a nightclub in the city.
The friend claimed: “Mario arrived at the end of the night in his white Bentley and took a couple of friends, including Jenny, home. That was the second time they got intimate – and she had no idea he had a girlfriend.
“The next morning he began talking about his girlfriend, which was upsetting for her and she left.”
Jenny first hit the headlines shortly before England’s doomed 2010 World Cup campaign out in South Africa. It was revealed that she and another call girl – Helen Wood – allegedly romped with Manchester United legend Rooney – while his wife Coleen was pregnant.
Dubbed “Juicy Jeni” on an adult internet profile, she claimed the England icon paid her £1,200 in cash for each of their sessions at the Lowry Hotel in Salford.
Jenny added: “Wayne told us he’d never had a threesome before. He was shy and awkward.” She went on to claim they met at the hotel two weeks later, where he paid a member of staff £200 for a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. She also described sex with Rooney as “boring”.
Speaking after his client admitted the dalliance, Balotelli’s agent insisted the controversial footballer was determined to avoid “certain types of people” in the future.
His fling with Jenny came almost a year after he first met her in Manchester’s San Carlo restaurant – where he was said to have taunted her for bedding Wayne.
The Italian was alleged to have shouted at her across the room: “Rooney, Rooney”.
Approached by the Mirror at her family’s smart detached home in Bolton at the time, Jenny refused to discuss her meetings with the Balotelli. She said: “I have no comment to make.”
She later said: “I’d give him a 9.5 out of 10 for the sex. Mario is funny, intelligent and a gentleman in the bedroom. He’s a brilliant kisser.
“You’d think most blokes wouldn’t want to sleep with the same woman one of their mates or colleagues had, but to be honest Mario seemed to love the fact I’d slept with Wayne.”
Despite Balotelli’s confession, girlfriend Raffaella initially stood by her man and arrived with him when he headed to training. But they then split up, before she revealed that she was due to give birth to his first child that December.
Balotelli said he’d only assume parental responsibilities with a positive paternity test and after his daughter was born, Raffaella accused Balotelli of being “irresponsible” and “not interested” in their newborn.
He threatened to sue her in response, before finally accepting he was the girl’s dad after a DNA test in 2014. The Italy international, who would later flop at Liverpool before becoming a journeyman striker, has since become a dad again, having a son with an unidentified woman.
One month after his affair with Jenny came to light, Balotelli recorded the one assist of his entire time in the Premier League – the pass that set up Sergio Aguero’s historic 94th-minute title-winning goal against Queens Park Rangers to hand City the trophy and break United hearts.
Jenny meanwhile would appear on ITV Daybreak, claiming she had been addicted to prostitution when she slept with Rooney seven times at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester.
She offered an apology to Coleen, who stayed with her husband despite the accusations: “If she [Coleen] was sat here now I would say I’m sorry.”
Jenny would later say that while she earned £1,200 a night as an escort and slept with more than 13 Premier League stars, she regretted spilling the beans about her supposed threesome with Rooney and blew the £80,000 she received for the ‘kiss and tell’ on “nothing of importance”.