Metro

Glammed-up DSK accuser goes public as race gets drawn into case

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Who’s that lady?

Nafissatou Diallo was ushered into Brooklyn’s Christian Cultural Center yesterday aboard patent-leather pumps that made the 5-foot-10 former hotel maid and current sex accuser tower over the two dozen supporters who stood guard, including church pastors and a prominent member of the New Black Panther Party.

She was unrecognizable.

Gone were the baggy, gray slacks and lime-green, shapeless blouse she wore in that ill-advised interview on ABC. Gone was the lifeless hair.

Who cares if the Manhattan district attorney no longer believes in her? In the 24 hours before staging a press conference/rally/image makeover, Diallo, who accuses powerful French guy Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her, underwent a glam, head-to-toe makeover — even as supporters attempted to remake the case of rape into a case of race.

VIDEO: DSK ACCUSER GOES PUBLIC

Diallo tiptoed to the podium, meekly at first, done up in a skinny, black pantsuit, hair freshly highlighted, as if proving that living well, or at least looking good, is the best revenge. She pulled compulsively at the crease of her tight, black pants.

“My name is Nafi Diallo,” she said. “I’m here today to tell everybody how much I’ve been through these past months.”

“My daughter, we went through a lot. We cry every day. We can’t sleep. Me and my family, we have gone through a lot.”

She had words for those who’d dare diss her, though Diallo never mentioned the Manhattan DA by name.

“I have people call me a lot of bad names. Bad things they call me. That’s why I have to be here. A lot of things they say about me is not true.

“People call you bad names. People tell bad things about you because they don’t know you. You have to remember this guy is a powerful man,” she said of Strauss-Kahn.

She said her 15-year-old daughter kept her spirits up, telling her mom, “Only the people that you work with or our neighbors or the people back home know you, and those people say good things about you because they know you. Please, Mom, stop crying. Be strong for me.”

Diallo’s speech came to a soaring crescendo. “I told her I’m going to be strong for you and every other woman in the world.

“What happened to me I don’t want it to happen to any other woman because this is just too much. It’s too much for me and my daughter. And I’m here to thank everybody and all those people supporting me.”

A three-star performance. Maybe three and a half. And how Diallo, who has no known ties to Brooklyn, wound up in the enthusiastic embrace of one of the borough’s premier black churches — well, that was no accident.

The case of Diallo vs. The Frog began as a he-said, she-said tale — for Strauss-Kahn insists (and his dingbat wife ignores) that the sex he engaged in with the maid was consensual.

But the story took a sharp turn in the hands of Noel Leader of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care who, after Diallo left the stage, made the case into one of race.

“If it wasn’t for race, if it wasn’t for class, do you think [Diallo] would be treated this way?” he said.

The DA has suggested the case is in trouble. Not because of Diallo’s race, but because she previously lied about being gang-raped and discussed Strauss-Kahn on the phone with a jail inmate accused of drug trafficking. And then, there’s the matter of $100,000 that was reportedly funneled into her bank account by unsavory types.

None of this, of course, has to do with whether she was sexually attacked, but it undermines her credibility and ability to testify.

So change the subject. Make it about race. And while you’re at it, buy a glamorous wardrobe and glittery lip gloss and attract an adoring fan club.

It’s one way to succeed.

andrea.peyser@nypost.com