She may still be a teen but Manohara Odelia Pinot is clearly mature beyond her years. Married at the aged of 17, the French Indonesian claimed to have been raped, kidnapped and abused by her 31-year-old royal husband.

Having made a dramatic escape last month, Manohara has since shot to fame in Indonesia and was offered the starring role in a soap opera by Jakarta film production house Sinemart.

Last week, she took time out in between shoots at a studio in private television channel RCTI and to talk to Malaysiakini .

The following is the first of a two-part interview.

Malaysiakini: Why did you marry him (Kelantan prince Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Petra)?

Manohara: Well, the whole marriage process was complicated. It was not what you would call a “usual marriage”. Initially, I met him as a normal friend. We met at a dinner party, he did not even introduce himself to me.

(Later) it was just a kind of thing where you drop by ... and we go to have dinner, not just us but together with our friends.

One day in August 2008, he called us up and said: “Why don’t you guys come down to KL, I’ll introduce you to my parents.” So I was like, “Sure why not? I can go visit Kelantan as well, it would be a nice experience”.

So when we arrived - we were there for a couple of days - I met his parents and they said the mufti said on the 26th, the prince and I had to get married, and I laughed because I thought that it was a joke.