Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first far-right prime minister since Benito Mussolini, was forced into a faux-feminist moment Friday by boyfriend Andrea Giambruno’s incessant public misogyny: she publicly dumped him.
“My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost 10 years, ends here,” Meloni wrote on social media, two days after two off-air recordings emerged of Giambruno, a presenter on Mediaset’s news talkshow Diario Del Giorno, making foul remarks and suggestive comments towards a female colleague.
The couple have a seven-year-old daughter. “I thank him for the wonderful years we spent together, for the difficulties we went through and for giving me the most important thing in my life, which is our daughter Ginevra,” Meloni wrote. “Our paths have diverged for some time and it is time to acknowledge it.”
In the past, she has defended his sexism, including a recent remark blaming women for being raped. So the dumping was not a principled act; the tone of European media seems to be that Giambruno made her look weak and that his private behavior was a security problem for the Italian state. Giambruno originally charmed Meloni by stealing her half-eaten banana.
