Omar Harfouch

Omar Harfouch(Arabic: عمر حرفوش; born 20 April 1969 in Tripoli in Lebanon) is a businessman with Lebanese citizenship. Owner of a communications group in Ukraine, he is known in France for his participation in the reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of here! and for his many appearances at jet set parties, in videos, and in celebrity magazines. He is a regular donor and guest at AMFAR charity dinner in Cannes.

Omar Harfouch is of Lebanese origin. In Kiev, he and his brother Valid Arfush own the Supernovamedia group which includes the FM radio in Ukraine, radio Supernova. He is the publisher and editor of Paparazzi, a magazine in Russian.

He made his fortune in Ukraine at the age of 28 (around 1997). He is also a Ukrainian composer. He organized the Elite Model Look contest in Ukraine from 1997 to 2000.

Declaring that "the world of fashion needed a revolution," he and Walid founded a Geneva-based company in charge of organizing beauty contests in Ukraine in which the jury is composed of Internet users who can vote directly on the Internet. In 2002, he organized the final of Miss World Net in Tripoli, accompanied by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, despite the international embargo that was imposed on the country at that time.

He became known to the general public in France in April 2006, when he took part in the reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of here! for the benefit of Reporters Without Borders. During the show, he became the center of a controversy when he said he was a victim of "racist remarks" (he has black skin) of Marielle Goitschel, who in turn claimedto have treated him as "just a shrimp" (minus in French). The French media became interested in him, so he participated in several shows like Capital, which highlighted his personality, and Zone interdite on M6. He participated in the talk shows of Marc-Olivier Fogiel, Jean-Marc Morandini, and Laurent Ruquier.

He organized the Miss Europe competition with Endemol, initially presented on TF1, but the channel decided to sell it.

In May 2006, after participating in the radio broadcast of Cauet dechire on Fun Radio, he filed a complaint against Cauet for defamation and racial abuse for statements uttered during the show and published by the magazine Entrevue in July 2006.  · . A few months later, Cauet was found guilty of public defamation of an individual and sentenced to a 500 euro fine and one euro in damages. including two against Geneviève de Fontenay, and four against Entrevue.

In October 2006, he released a book, Mystères, scandales et... fortune (Mysteries, Scandals and... Fortune). The same year, he released his autobiography with a deliberately provocative title Omar Harfouch: Confessions of a millionaire, in which he sets things straight with the French "celebrity scene" and the so-called "presse people".