Manohara: I will not let Fakry take my future away

In a phone interview to New Straits Times (NST), Manohara Odelia Pinot said she wanted to put the past behind her and move on with life.

The Indonesian-American teen has appeared in all the private TV stations for the past week.

She answered their questions articulately and consistently.

Admitting to being tired from facing the glare of publicity, she nevertheless was thrilled to be home with her mother and sister.

She was born in Jakarta in 1992 to an an American father and Indonesian Daisy Fajarina. Her parents split up shortly after.

"My biological father was an alcoholic and drug user who beat up my sister and me. My mother remarried a wonderful French man who treated all of us well.

"He is my father."

She spent most of her childhood in Hong Kong, Austria, Switzerland, England and France before returning to Jakarta to complete her final years of high school where she graduated a few years ahead of time.

She wants to leave the past behind and look forward to the future.  

"He (Fakhry) deprived me of my past but I will not let him take away my future."

She was 14 when she first met Fakhry.

"I was at a friend's house party when he came up to me to say 'hi'." 

According to her, Fakhry called her a few times after that whenever he came to Jakarta for meetings.

"We were not dating. It was just like a friend out of town calling me up to meet." 

She said she went to Bali twice with Fakhry and a group of friends and was never alone with him.

On Aug 17 last year, he invited her, her mother and sister to visit KL and brought them to meet his parents.

During the meeting, she alleged that Fakhry's family told them a wedding had been arranged for her on Aug 26.

She and her family were taken aback.

She rejected the proposal, saying she did not want to leave her family.

In the end, she relented as the royal family told her it would be an embarrassment if the wedding did not go through.

She said she planned to return to school and study business management.

She also said she wanted to be an activist for women's rights.

The publicity has led to a flood of offers, including acting, which she intends to take up. 

"I would like to have a profile, to make connections so that I can use them to bring attention to the plight of abused women." 

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