A nude photo of Lisa Ellis — who was Wyclef Jean‘s manager until last month — is being circulated around town, along with a story that the photo caused the end of her employment by the Haitian superstar.
The full-frontal image of Ellis, her hands demurely covering her crotch, was taken a year and half ago by Marc Baptiste, the Haitian photographer who specializes in shooting arty nudes.
The story making the rounds in the music industry — and in the Sony Building where Ellis worked for 15 years handling such artists as Prince, Maxwell, Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé and John Legend — is that someone sent Jean, 37, a copy of the photo, which his wife of six years, Marie Claudinette, saw on his cellphone or computer. Claudinette supposedly flipped out and demanded Ellis be fired.
But Ellis said none of the rumors are true. “That photograph was taken for a book. Someone somehow got ahold of it and is now using it against me,” Ellis told Page Six yesterday.
“I quit being Wyclef’s manager just because I don’t like the way he does business. The photo has nothing to do with anything, but now there’s this completely made-up, falsified story about it,” she said.
The attractive Ellis — who dated Harold Ford Jr. before the noncandidate for the US Senate got married — is an equestrian who keeps her two show-jumping horses in the Hamptons. She is also a founding partner at Fireman Capital Partners.
Asked if she regretted posing for the photo, Lisa said, “I regret that people chose to leak things and make up stories.”
Ken Sunshine, who reps Jean, said, “Wyclef is spending all his time trying to rebuild Haiti and will have no comment on any of these false rumors.”