Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Friday that she is separating from her partner, television journalist Andrea Giambruno, who admitted to having another relationship in malicious comments recorded without her knowledge.
“My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost ten years, is over (…) Our paths have diverged for some time and it is time to acknowledge it,” she wrote in a message that she accompanied on social networks with a selfie several years old, in which we see her smiling with her now ex-partner and her only, still very small daughter Ginevra, now 7 years old.
“I thank him for the wonderful years we spent together, for the difficulties we faced and for giving me the most important thing in my life, our daughter Ginevra,” the 46-year-old prime minister added added.
This announcement comes after the broadcast of statements by 42-year-old Andrea Giambruno, recorded without his knowledge on the sidelines of the program he hosts on the private channel Rete4.
These remarks were broadcast this week in a satirical program on Canale 5, another channel owned by the Mediaset group, which belongs to the Berlusconi family.
In the recording broadcast on Thursday evening, the journalist says to a colleague: “What is your name?” Do we already know each other? Where have I seen you before? Was I drunk?” Before adding: “Like my darling? Did you know that me and XXX (name redacted) are in a relationship? All of Mediaset knows it, and now you too. But we are looking for a third participant. You want to be part of our working group, would you like that?”
“Stay at home!”
These statements apparently made headlines in the Italian media and social networks, creating an embarrassing situation for the ultra-conservative leader, who was in power for a year and presented herself as a “Christian mother” during her election campaign.
Andrea Giambruno, an attractive brunette with blue eyes and a good charisma, has already been at the center of several controversies. In September, he referred to “transhumance” when discussing migrants before apologizing.
On the painful issue of rape, he said: “If you avoid getting drunk or losing consciousness, you also avoid facing certain problems.”
While the German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach complained about the heat while on vacation in Italy (“If it continues like this, these holiday destinations have no future in the long term”), he replied in a polemical tone: “If it doesn’t continue like this.” “If you don’t like it, stay home.”
Giorgia Meloni concludes her Friday message with this sentence: “All those who have tried to weaken me by attacking my family know that even if the drop hopes to penetrate the stone, the stone remains stone and the drop is just some water.” .
His two deputy prime ministers expressed their solidarity with him.
Matteo Salvini, head of the Anti-Migrant League, part of the governing coalition, hastened to publish on social networks a message of solidarity with his ally but also political rival: “A very warm greeting to Giorgia, with my friendship and my support.” . Forward with your head held high!”
“Giorgia, I greet you warmly,” wrote the other deputy prime minister, Antonio Tajani, foreign minister and head of Forza Italia, the conservative party founded by Silvio Berlusconi, soberly.