Porn star Ginger Lee. (FTVGirls.com)
“Weinergate” has put a Seattle college cutie through the wringer — jeopardizing her academic dreams, embarrassing her family and shattering her privacy.
“I’m just collateral damage,” Gennette Cordova, 21, lamented in explaining how her world was turned upside-down when she wound up on the receiving end of a lewd, underwear-clad crotch shot sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account.
“I just want this to be over,” she told The Post yesterday during an exclusive photo shoot and interview near her Bellingham, Wash., college campus.
Cordova thinks the package-hugging picture — which Weiner “can’t say with certitude” isn’t his — was meant for somebody else and landed in her Twitter account by mistake.
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Cordova is one of 198 people, many of them young, beautiful women, whom Weiner follows on Twitter.
Until recently, the congressman also followed stripper and porn actress Ginger Lee, 28, who openly gushes about her “Mr. Sexy Congressman” on social-network sites.
“Her name is Ginger — it makes sense he might have mixed us up,” Cordova said, noting that two of the first three letters of their names are the same.
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Weiner has admitted he sent Lee at least one private Twitter message, but has declined to reveal the content and claims they’ve never met.
Cordova says she doesn’t know Weiner personally, but became a fan after seeing him on television.
She called the scandal — fueled by days of Weiner’s snarky sidestepping on whether it’s his equipment in the shot — “an eye-opening experience.”
“Everyone’s [writing] that I backed [Weiner’s] contention that there was a hacking,” she said. “But I never mentioned anything about a hacking.”
Weiner first contended his Twitter account was hacked, which is a federal offense, but later backed off, calling it “a prank.”
The randy representative hasn’t reached out to Cordova, and she said she doesn’t expect an apology.
“I just want to get on with my life,” said Cordova, who plans to work as a restaurant hostess or law firm assistant this summer.
“This has been really hard on me.”
She’s been inundated with interview requests but wants to be left alone.
“People are saying, ‘You need a book deal.’ What for? This isn’t my place, I just want to get it over with.”
She agreed to pose for pictures to offset what she said are unflattering snapshots of her, some from social-media sites, that have appeared.
“Some of the pictures have been really bad — just me out partying and stuff,” said Cordova. “My grandparents have been seeing this. It’s so embarrassing.”
“It’s hard for me to smile,” she said. “I’m in a bad mood and I’m sick.”
Cordova, a journalism student whose college finals are under way, said she’s still in school but has dropped some classes.
“I haven’t slept much,” she said. “I’ve just been constantly monitoring what’s being said about me. It’s crazy.”
Cordova said her family and friends have created “a love bubble” around her, with her boyfriend making her tea and her mom, siblings and cousins shielding her from the press.
“I don’t really get the whole situation,” she said.
“I’ve just been thinking about how I can get my privacy back.”