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Laure Ferrari was working as a waitress when she first met Nigel Farage 17 years ago.聽

A decade later, the first reports emerged of them being romantically linked.

While she was labelled by some parts of the press as a "secret girlfriend", in her first TV interview late last year she insisted that was not the case.

"I want to come out," she told GB News. "I do exist, and I do support Nigel."

Shortly after the interview she was flown out to Australia to meet Mr Farage as he finished his stint on I'm A Celebrity.

Now she could be about to become the girlfriend of an MP, if Mr Farage is successful in his eighth run at entering the Commons, standing as the Reform candidate in Clacton.

She's not a secret - so what do we know about her?

Who is Laure Ferrari?

Born in the French town of Epinal in 1979, Laure Ferrari studied English at the University of Strasbourg and was waitressing in the city when she met Nigel Farage.

The former UKIP and Brexit Party leader was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) at the time and the pair got into a conversation.

She credited this meeting with sparking her desire to enter politics.

That was in 2007, when she was 28. Now 44, she is 15 years his junior.

How long have the pair been romantically linked?

Ms Ferrari and Mr Farage have been linked since 2017, when reports emerged they were sharing a home.

At the time, Mr Farage told The Mail On Sunday that Ms Ferrari was someone he had "known well for a long time" and he was helping her out because she needed somewhere to stay for a week.

It was a "working relationship", he said - refusing to answer questions about whether they had been intimate.

Ms Ferrari told the newspaper: "I have no trustworthy friends in London who could have hosted me.

"I asked and he accepted. He is just trying to be helpful."

The same year, the pair were pictured dancing together at a Brexit anniversary party.

Read more from Sky News:
Nigel Farage taunted about Brexit in I'm A Celebrity debut
Farage to seek millions in damages from NatWest

Political career

Ms Ferrari got her break in politics thanks to Mr Farage, who secured her a job at the European Parliament.

She first worked as a parliamentary assistant before becoming head of public relations for the British delegation to the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group, EFD, which was co-chaired by Mr Farage.

In 2014, she ran for far-right French party Arise the Republic (Debout la Republique) at the European Parliament elections.

The following year, she was appointed head of the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE), a eurosceptic thinktank.

The IDDE and the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), the political party it is affiliated to, were accused of misspending taxpayers' money.

An audit by the European Parliament found the ADDE and IDDE used more than £400,000 of EU grant funding for the benefit of UKIP, in breach of its rules.

A long-time eurosceptic

In a 2014 interview, she told EURACTIV France she had no interest in politics until the 2005 French referendum on ratifying the proposed Constitution of the European Union.

Ms Ferrari said: "I said to myself - the EU is going behind the backs of European citizens here. I was always a bit of a rebel.

"What I find repelling about the European Union is that it imposes a vision that does not correspond to that of the European citizens."

In the same interview, she distanced herself from far-right party the National Front, saying she had taken part in protests against the party when she was younger.

"Some of their ideas, like those regarding the death penalty and immigration, disgust me," she said.