Taking a leaf out of Miranda Kerr's book - the business of being Lara Bingle

LARA Bingle has the local media exactly where she wants them - in a bidding war for photos and baying for more.

Picture: Lara Bingle/Instagram

A MERE three weeks into her relationship with Hollywood darling Sam Worthington and Lara Bingle has the local media exactly where she wants them - in a bidding war for photos and baying for more.

Yesterday, as serial-girlfriend and paparazzi-darling Bingle lunched with Worthington at Palm Beach's The Boathouse, magazine editors were weighing up the value of latest "first" pictures of the bikini model with the Clash of the Titans star and trying to predict the life expectancy of the romance and calculate whether it will burn out before their editions hit newsagency shelves.

Three weeks after meeting in New York on September 28 at a Cotton On Foundation's Global Citizen Concert, the pair are playing a cat-and-mouse game with paparazzi photographers that has remarkably eclipsed even current interest in Angelina Jolie's Australian visit.

Sam Worthington grabs coffee and water before heading to the gym with Lara Bingle / Picture: INF

LARA AND SAM REUNITED IN SYDNEY

LARA SAYS SHE HAS NO REGRETS

LARA COULD CASH IN ON HER ROMANCE

SAM CONFIRMS HE AND BINGLE ARE ON

BINGLE MADE MICHAEL CLARKE DISTANT

Having previously revealed her talent for media during an unlikely alliance with pap agency boss Darryn Lyons of Big, Bingle, or so say pap photographers, is back to her old tricks tipping off media to alert them as to where she and Worthingon will be to afford maximum exposure for the new relationship.

Lara Bingle at Bondi Junction / Picture: INF

Strange as it may seem, Worthington, or so they claim, is largely unaware this is going on.

Having parted with more managers than most celebrities will ever meet, Bingle a year ago joined forces with George Moskos, the founder of Miranda Kerr's skincare range Kora.

Moskos yesterday clarified his role with Bing is to offer business advice, surround her with a support team of accounts, lawyers, publicists, and create a business strategy.

The focus of this being to launch a lingerie brand in the middle of next year.

"I don't do management," the softly spoken Moskos said yesterday. "There's no money in it. I created Miranda Kerr's Kora skincare range, put the management in place and then sold it last year and got a seven figure payout."

Moskos said he did not believe Bingle had been tipping off photographers during the past fortnight or was using her

affair with Worthington to boost her profile.

Miranda kerr in New York / Picture: Snapper Media

"No she wouldn't do that. I could absolutely say that hasn't been happening," he said.

He laughingly said just as it had not been his advice to Kerr to snag a world famous Hollywood actor (Orlando Bloom), not had it been his advice to Bingle to do same.

"No, that's not part of my advice, nor has it been to (swimsuit model) Jess Hart, with whom I'm working, to get involved with Stavros (shipping heir Stavros Niarchos III) - though he looks like one," said Moskos.

Moskos added that Bingle and Worthington have had up to eight photographers tailing them during the past week - a fact which has prompted the suspicion of some paps.

"You've got to admit it's pretty weird that when a group of photographers tail Lara to a pier in Sydney and she and Sam hop on a boat, that a photographer is waiting at the other end at Palm Beach and gets a $15,000 set of pictures for Woman's Day," said one yesterday. "I mean who's tipping the guy off to be at the unknown destination of that boat?"

Unlike her arrangement with Lyons, Bingle is no longer in a position to approve photos and is said to have been unhappy with the shots, saying within earshot of one photographer that the photos made her "look fat".

Prompting, said another, her unseasonal cover-up in an ankle-length coat earlier this week - a look, said one fashion observer, she also looks to have borrowed from Kerr.

Rumours abound that Bingle will next head to Paris with Worthington after quitting the Palm Beach house they have been renting for the past fortnight.