“Shameful and unacceptable”
Meloni partner shocks with statements about rape
8/31/2023 8:36 am
Andrea Giambruno, TV presenter and partner of Giorgia Meloni, is known for controversy. With a statement about rape, however, he overshoots the mark. He partly blames women for assaults. Hard criticism follows.
TV presenter Andrea Giambruno is characterized by his rabid tone. This time, however, the partner of Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni caused nationwide outrage with a statement about rapes. So he partly blamed the victims. “If you go dancing, you have the right to drink,” he said on his program on the right-wing TV channel Rete 4. “If you don’t get drunk unconscious, nothing will happen to you. Because those are the situations where you meet the wolf.” Here rapists play the role of the instinct-driven predator.
According to several media outlets, including “Spiegel”, “Guardian” and the BBC, criticism from some political actors promptly followed. The 5 Star Movement called the statements “shameful and unacceptable”. Cecilia D’Elia, Senator of the opposition Partito Democratico, emphasized Giambruno’s perpetrator-victim reversal. “They can’t help but blame the victim. Don’t go out alone, don’t go out in the dark, don’t dress revealingly.” If a woman drinks too much, she should expect a headache, not a rape, she said. Women don’t have to learn more caution, but men have to learn more respect.
Criticism also came from Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She described Giambruno’s statements as “medieval”. They would also lead to fewer and fewer women daring to go to the police.
Rapes in Palermo and Naples
The statements caused outrage in particular because two gang rapes had shocked Italy shortly before. In July, seven men, some of whom were minors, raped a 19-year-old girl in Palermo. They filmed their act with their smartphones. And in a suburb of Naples, six teenagers molested two girls – both still minors.
Giambruno has now denied any guilt. He declined an apology. He stressed that he didn’t want politicians to dictate what he had to say. Meloni, who has a daughter with the moderator, has not yet commented on this. “So far she hasn’t allowed herself to tell me what I can and can’t say,” Andrea Giambruno told Corriere della Sera.
Only a few months ago, the moderator etched against Karl Lauterbach. The reason was a tweet in which the Federal Minister of Health commented on the heat wave in Italy. “If things continue like this, these holiday destinations will have no future in the long term. Climate change is destroying southern Europe. An era is coming to an end.” Giambruno said on the show “Diario del Giorno”: “If you don’t like it, stay at home.”