ROME – Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, says she has separated from her long-time partner Andrea Giambruno.
She announced the split on social media hours after a TV show broadcast explicit comments made off-air by TV host Giambruno to female colleagues.
Meloni said the relationship, “which lasted almost 10 years, ends here. Our paths have been different for some time… it’s time to acknowledge it.”
The couple met in 2015 and they have a daughter aged seven.
In her post, the Italian leader also thanked Giambruno, 41, for the “wonderful years we spent together, for the difficulties we went through and for giving me the most important thing in my life, our daughter Ginevra”.
She added: “All those who sought to weaken me by striking my family should know that even if a water drop can hope to break a rock, a rock will always be a rock while a drop is just water.”
Giambruno found himself in hot water earlier this week after a satirical TV programme, Striscia La Notizia, broadcast 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?”
More explicit off-air comments were then broadcast on Thursday, in which 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”, and then makes lewd references to group sex.
Giambruno is heard asking: “Will you join our group, our working group?”
When another voice asks “What if Striscia has recorded you?”, he is heard to respond: “What did I say that’s so bad? We’re laughing, we’re joking around.” (BBC)
