Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, says she has separated from her long-time partner Andrea Giambruno, a television host who has made several embarrassing, sexist comments.
The couple met in 2015 and they have a daughter aged seven.
Giorgia Meloni announced the split on social media hours after a TV show publicized explicit comments Giambruno made off-air to female colleagues.
The lewd words
Giambruno was involved in numerous inappropriate behaviours, including reportedly musing about having a ‘threesome, even a foursome.’
He also reportedly asked a colleague of his, ‘Can I touch my balls while I talk to you?’
Giambruno found himself in hot water earlier this week after a satirical TV programme, Striscia La Notizia, publicized comments he made off-camera, in which he appeared to flirt with a female colleague by telling her: ‘You’re so clever… Why didn’t I meet you sooner?’
Then, on Thursday, Oct. 19, more explicit off-air comments he made were publicized.
More embarrassing, sexist comments
In one, Giambruno was heard asking another colleague whether she was single or in an open relationship.
He is heard boasting about having an affair, saying ‘everyone’ at Mediaset, the TV company he works for, ‘knows it, and now you do too’.
He then made lewd references to ‘group sex’.
Giambruno is heard asking the colleague: ‘Will you join our group, our working group?’ When another voice asks ‘What if Striscia has recorded you?’, he replied, ‘What did I say that’s so bad? We’re laughing, we’re joking around.’
It is not the first time Giambruno has caused controversy. A few months ago, he was accused of victim-blaming after he appeared to say young women could avoid rape by not getting drunk.
He said at the time, ‘If you go dancing you have every right to get drunk. But if you avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness, maybe you would also avoid getting into specific problems because that’s when you find the wolf.’
On the heels of Giambruno’s sexist comments, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said their relationship of almost 10 years is over.
The divorce
She wrote on Instagram: ‘My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost ten years, ends here.
‘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 Geneva.
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‘Our roads have long been divided, and it’s time to realize it.
‘I will defend who we were, I will defend our friendship, and I will defend, at all costs, a seven-year-old who loves her mother and father, the way I could not love mine.
‘Nothing more to say about this one.
‘Ps. all those who hoped to weaken me by hitting me in the house should know that as much as the drop may hope to dig out the stone, the stone remains a stone and the drop is just water.’
