Russian TV personality and blogger Anastasia Ivleeva said Thursday that she will vote for Vladimir Putin in next month's presidential election after facing a conservative backlash for organizing her “nearly naked” party in December.
Ivleeva and several other celebrities issued public apologies after pictures from the private event at a Moscow nightclub were leaked online, causing outrage among conservative and pro-war figures.
Ivleeva, who is not known to have previously weighed in on political issues, said she had watched President Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation address earlier on Thursday.
“The initiatives and projects that were voiced [by Putin] honestly resonate with me, and I know I’ll go vote for them,” Ivleeva wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
“For the past few months, I’ve been trying to immerse myself and make sense of many issues that I’d not paid attention to before,” Ivleeva told her 530,000 subscribers.
As with the apology videos that circulated after the “nearly naked” party scandal, it was not immediately clear whether Ivleeva wrote Thursday's post voluntarily or under pressure.
Other celebrities who attended the “nearly naked” party, like pop star Filipp Kirkorov, were effectively banned from appearing on TV until they went to visit Russian troops in occupied Ukraine.
Russia's presidential election is scheduled for March 15-17, and Putin is widely expected to be re-elected.
