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Anna Chapman was a mediocre spy, at best. But as a celebrity, she's proving to be unstoppable.
Lesser spies would have retreated from the public eye after their own incompetence blew their cover. But to quote Aaliyah, Anna's not just anybody: the coquettish ex-spook showed up on Russian TV on New Year's Eve to play on her infamy.
In this clip, broadcast on Channel One to close out 2010, Anna shoots man-eating stares at a gentleman in a tuxedo while tender piano music plays during a banquet. The dude, portraying a fictional spy who's at the party with another woman, can do little but gulp uncomfortably as Anna looks at him longingly. It's apparently a parody of a Russian show called Seventeen Moments of Spring.
The tension lasts through nearly three black-and-white minutes of footage before finally she says: "If you have love hidden deep your heart, you will never succeed in concealing it. It is best to come out with it. And New Year’s night is the best time for this."
Anna's not into concealing much. In addition to the poor operational security her team practiced – they couldn't resist Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks – she posed this year in the Russian version of Maxim. (An ex-boyfriend gave NSFW photos of her to Playboy for its January issue, as well.) Befitting Vladimir Putin's insistence that the spy ring "didn't cause any harm to the interests of the United States of America," Chapman joined the boss-for-life's youth group, mouthing platitudes in a late-December Putin-youth appearance like, "There would be less negativity in society if each of us woke up with a smile."
But Channel One has her first round of TV interviews. And they brought her off in style, presenting her with a lion cub – she's naming it Nano – while she bragged about what a great shot she is. Anna might even run for Parliament, which is too good to be true. Get ready to see this woman everywhere in 2011.
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