Giorgia Meloni, the first female prime minister of Italy, announced she has split from her longtime partner, television presenter Andrea Giambruno, after his lewd and sexist comments to his female colleagues were caught on camera and broadcast.
Meloni, a right-wing populist, made the announcement just hours after the broadcast of the video, in which her boyfriend propositioned female colleagues for a threesome and admitted to an affair on the set of his show, Diary del Giorno (Daily Agenda).
In one clip, he makes suggestive remarks to a female journalist as he paces the set of his TV show and repeatedly touches his crotch.
He asks her, “Can I touch my b— while I talk to you?”
In another conversation with a female colleague, Giambruno said, “How are you, darling? Do you know that [name redacted] and I are having an affair? All of Mediaset knows it, and now you do, too. But we’re looking for a third person, as we do threesomes. Foursomes, too. Would you like to be a part of our working group?”
The leaked footage was broadcast by Scriscia la Notizia, a satirical news program.
Antonio Ricci, the creator of the program, wrote on Facebook after the scandal broke: “Meloni, one day you’ll realize that I did you a favor.”
An MP from the center-left opposition Democratic Party, Marco Furfaro, said that Giambruno’s remarks were “pure chauvinism and sexism… uncommentable filth.”
Meloni seemed to suggest that there were political motives behind the leaked audio and video.
She wrote on social media, “All those hoping to weaken me by attacking my home should know that even if a drop of water can hope to erode the stone, the stone is always stone while the drop is only water.”
She continued, “My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost ten years, ends here. Our paths have diverged for some time, and the time has come to acknowledge it.”
Meloni graciously thanked him for “the splendid years we spent together, for the difficulties we went through and for giving me the most important thing in my life, our daughter.”
She went on that she would “defend, at all costs, a seven-year-old girl who loves her mother and loves her father, as I was unable to love mine.”
The prime minister’s father abandoned the family when she was young, and Meloni and her sister were raised by a single mother in a working-class district of Rome.
Meloni ended her statement, “I have no more to say on this matter.”
On Friday afternoon, Giambruno was suspended from his role as presenter of Diaro del Giorno.
Meloni has surprised observers by pledging Italy’s support to Ukraine’s fight against Russia. She has also implemented several anti-LGBTQ laws.
