Alessandra Mussolini | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2014 | |
| Member of the European Parliament forCentral Italy | |
| In office 2 November 2022 – 15 July 2024 | |
| In office 1 July 2014 – 1 July 2019 | |
| In office 20 July 2004 – 28 April 2008 | |
| Member of the Senate | |
| In office 15 March 2013 – 30 June 2014 | |
| Constituency | Campania |
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
| In office 29 April 2008 – 14 March 2013 | |
| Constituency | Campania 1 |
| In office 23 April 1992 – 19 July 2004 | |
| Constituency | Naples |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1962-12-30)30 December 1962 (age 62) Rome, Italy |
| Political party | Lega (2025–present) |
| Other political affiliations | MSI (1992–1995) AN (1995–2003) AS (2003–2009) AS (2004–2006) PdL (2009–2013) FI (2013–2018; 2019–2025) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingRomano |
| Parent(s) | Romano Mussolini (father) Maria Scicolone (mother) |
| Relatives | Mussolini family Sophia Loren (aunt) Rachele Mussolini (half-sister) |
| Alma mater | Sapienza University of Rome |
| Occupation |
|
Alessandra Mussolini (born 30 December 1962) is an Italian politician, television personality, model and former actress and singer. Mussolini has been a member of both houses of theItalian Parliament as well as theEuropean Parliament. She is also known for being a member of theMussolini family as a granddaughter ofBenito Mussolini.[1][2][3][4] Since 2022, she has been aMember of theEuropean Parliament forForza Italia.
Mussolini first gained fame through acting and modelling. In 1982, as a singer, she released acity pop album entitledAmore. Mussolini starred in her final film in 1990 and left the industry after a producer asked her to change her name.
In 2004, she became the first woman to lead a political party in Italy when she founded thenational conservative political partySocial Action.[5] She was a member of theChamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013 and theItalian Senate from 2013 to 2014 where she was elected underThe People of Freedom which later became part of Forza Italia. She was elected to the European Parliament in2014.[6]
Mussolini left politics temporarily in December 2020 for a reality television career.[7] She returned as anMEP in November 2022, succeedingAntonio Tajani, after he was appointed in theMeloni government.[8]
Alessandra Mussolini was born in Rome, the daughter ofRomano Mussolini, the fourth child ofBenito Mussolini,fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, andMarianna Pia Villani Scicolone (born 11 May 1938, Rome). ActressSophia Loren is her maternal aunt. She has a half-sister,Rachele Mussolini, who is also a politician as a member ofBrothers of Italy.
From 1976 to 1980 she went to high school at theAmerican Overseas School of Rome. She graduated in 1994 fromSapienza University of Rome, where she got herMaster of Science in medicine and surgery.
She married customs policeman Mauro Floriani on 28 October 1989. Contrary to tradition, she proposed to him.[9] Together they have three children,[10] Caterina, Clarissa, and Romano — the last named after his grandfather. Later, the children adopted their mother's surname, but she went through a complex legal process to allow them to do so. She has since campaigned for Italian law to be changed to allow all children to take their mother's last name if they wish.[11]
Her husband was one of the accused scheduled to appear in court for achild prostitution trial in 2015. In 2013, Floriani was one of around 50 men—among them celebrities, professionals, priests, journalists and politicians—who were accused of paying two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15, for sexual services in Rome.[12] Wiretaps revealed he was one of the clients who contacted the girls most often. In 2015, Floriani pled guilty to soliciting the services of an underage prostitute, and received a one-year suspended sentence.[13]
She is first cousin once-removed to Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, Benito Mussolini's great-grandson, who ran for theFratelli d’Italia party in the2019 European Parliament election.[14] She considers herselfRoman Catholic, although she does not attend Mass regularly.[15]
In 2001, Mussolini was involved in an altercation while filming for aPorta a Portatalk show episode onsexual harassment. She was verbally accosted byKatia Bellillo, then Minister for Equal Opportunities, who got up and approached Mussolini. In response Mussolini verbally and physically attacked Bellillo, calling her an "ugly communist" who should "go and live in Cuba."[16][17]
She has been a painter since 2014 and her first solo exhibition was held during 2015 in Rome.[18][19]
Mussolini was taken under the wing of her auntSophia Loren for a while and started a career as anactress in the Italian film industry during the 1970s.A Special Day (1977), in which she had a minor role as "Maria Luisa," won an AmericanGolden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
During 1982, Mussolini released apop music album of romantic songs under the titleAmore onAlfa Records; the album was released only in Japan and has since become something of a collector's item.[20]
Mussolini also appeared as aglamour model,[21] including on the cover of two European editions ofPlayboy, in Italy (August 1983) and Germany (November 1983).[22][23] "When you are an actress, you are dealing with the body. Every actress doestopless and stuff like this; you have to," she has said.[16]
Mussolini continued as an actress into the 1980s. Some of the films she featured in were made for Italian television. However, she still acted in standard cinematic films, such asThe Assisi Underground in which she played anun; the movie focused on theRoman Catholic Church rescuingItalian Jews from the Nazis in 1943.[24] She starred in her final film in 1990 and then left the film industry to continue studying after a producer asked her to change her name.[16]
| Title | Notes |
|---|---|
| Amore |
|
| Title | Year | Album |
|---|---|---|
| "Love is Love" | 1982 | Amore |
| "Tokyo Fantasy" |
In 1992, Alessandra Mussolini was elected to parliament in aNaplesconstituency as a member of theMovimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). After the Italian general elections of April 2008, Mussolini served as a member of the Italian parliament withinSilvio Berlusconi's alliance of right wing parties,The People of Freedom.[6]
In theItalian general election of February 2013, she was elected to theSenate of the Republic as a member of The People of Freedom. The party was transformed into a newForza Italia in November 2013.[25] In the2014 European Parliament election, Mussolini was elected to the EP forForza Italia.[26]
In 1993 Mussolini was a candidate for the post of mayor of Naples, but was defeated byAntonio Bassolino. She claimed that her relations withGianfranco Fini, leader of the Alleanza Nazionale, never were very good; she then later withdrew, resigning over differences with him at least once.[27] She unsuccessfully challenged him for the leadership of the party when he withdrew support for Mussolini in a television interview in January 2002.[28][29]
Mussolini suddenly left theNational Alliance on 28 November 2003, following the visit of party leader and the Deputy Prime MinisterGianfranco Fini toIsrael, where he described fascism as part "the absolute evil" with regard tothe Holocaust as he apologised for Italy's role as anAxis Power during theSecond World War.[30] Mussolini, however, defended the right ofIsrael to exist and declared that the world "should beg forgiveness of Israel."[31]
Following her resignation, Mussolini formed herSocial Action party, originally named "Freedom of Action," and organised a coalition namedSocial Alternative. This made her the first female leader of an Italian political party.[5] The move was read in theItalian media as surprising because of Mussolini's "progressive" stances on many issues, including abortion,[32]artificial insemination,[33][34]gay rights[35] andcivil unions.[36] She has been an outspoken feminist[37] and has been described by conservative commentators as a "socialist"[38] and a "left-winger."[39]
In the2004 European Parliament election,Social Alternative, gained 1.2% of the electoral list vote. Mussolini herself received 133,000 preference votes.
In response to a comment made byUKIPMEPGodfrey Bloom in which he said that "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. That isn't politically correct, is it, but it's a fact of life. The more women's rights you have, it's actually a bar to their employment."[40] and: "I just don't think [women] clean behind the fridge enough,"[41] Mussolini responded by saying
I know the English have a sense of humour about themselves, but I am from Naples and I can say that us women do know how to cook and clean the refrigerator and even be politicians, while perhaps Godfrey Bloom does not know either how to clean the refrigerator or how to be a politician.[42]
In March 2005, Mussolini was banned by a local court from regional elections held the following month for presenting fraudulent signatures.[43] "This is an affront to democracy, if they're going to exclude the Social Alternative they will have to exclude all the parties, because all the signature lists are false," Mussolini told Reuters.[44] Mussolini went on a hunger strike to protest the decision.[45] However, at the end of the month Italy's top administrative court, theCouncil of State, annulled the decision and she stood for election.[46]
In November 2007, remarks by Mussolini triggered the collapse of the far-rightIdentity, Tradition, Sovereignty grouping within the European Parliament.[47] Mussolini declared that allRomanians were criminals in remarks regarding immigration policy. This prompted delegates from theGreater Romania Party to quit the group, bringing the group below the minimum number of members to qualify as a caucus and receive Parliamentary funding. In the2019 European Parliament election, she lost her bid for re-election to the European Parliament.[14]
In 2006, she responded to claims by thetransgender Italian parliamentary candidateVladimir Luxuria that she was a "fascist" by saying that it would be better to be a fascist than it would be to be gay ("frocio").[48]
Her stance on homosexuality changed consistently from the late 2000s. In 2010, Mussolini condemned theVatican's comparison ofhomosexuality with paedophilia, stating "You can't link sexual orientation to pedophilia … this link risks becoming dangerously misleading for the protection of children".[49] In 2022, she supported the anti-homophobia "Zan bill" and she refused to provide her gender information on her MEP identity card after returning to the European Parliament.[50]
She left Forza Italia in 2018, following the party's decision to be in opposition to theConte government.[51] She has used Twitter to defend the memory of her grandfather from critics such as actorJim Carrey, and fans of Scottish football clubCeltic F.C.[1][52]
In December 2020, she left politics for a new television career.[7] She took part, as contestant, inMilly Carlucci'sBallando con le stelle and inCarlo Conti'sTale e quale show obtaining success.
In November 2022, Mussolini returned to politics to replaceAntonio Tajani as aForza ItaliaMEP afterhis election to theChamber of Deputies.[8]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | White Sister | Sister Germana (child) | |
| 1977 | A Special Day | Maria Luisa | |
| 1983 | Il tassinaro | Donatella | |
| 1985 | The Assisi Underground | Beata | |
| 1987 | Noi uomini duri | Adua | |
| Non scommettere mai con il cielo | Sister Angelica | ||
| 1990 | HaDerekh LeEin Harod | Liora |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981–1982 | Domenica in | Herself / Co-host | Talk show (season 6) |
| 1984 | Aurora | Bride | Television movie |
| 1986 | Ferragosto OK | Jenny | Television movie |
| 1987 | Investigatori d'Italia | Cristina Carli | Episode: "L'inafferrabile mostro del Po" |
| Giuliana Drago | Episode: "L'omicidio del banchiere Galante" | ||
| 1988 | Vivere per vincere | Fiamma | Television movie |
| 1990 | Sabato, domenica e lunedì | Giulianella | Television movie |
| 2006 | La pupa e il secchione | Herself / Judge | Reality show (season 1) |
| The Simpsons | Tammy (voice) | Episode: "The Last Of The Red Hat Mamas" (Italian dub only) | |
| 2008–2021 | Mattino Cinque | Herself / Opinionist | Talk show |
| Pomeriggio Cinque | Talk show | ||
| 2012–2021 | Domenica Live | Sunday-special talk show | |
| 2020 | Ballando con le Stelle | Herself / Contestant | Talent show (season 15) |
| Election | House | Constituency | Party | Votes | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Chamber of Deputies | Naples–Caserta | MSI | 56,716 |  YElected | |
| 1994 | Chamber of Deputies | Naples –Ischia | AN | 39,736 | YElected | |
| 1996 | Chamber of Deputies | Naples –Ischia | AN | 42,249 | YElected | |
| 2001 | Chamber of Deputies | Naples –Ischia | AN | 36,902 | YElected | |
| 2004 | European Parliament | Central Italy | AS | 39,823 | YElected | |
| 2006 | Chamber of Deputies | Campania 1 | AS | –[a] |  NNot elected | |
| 2008 | Chamber of Deputies | Campania 1 | PdL | –[a] | YElected | |
| 2013 | Senate of the Republic | Campania | PdL | –[a] | YElected | |
| 2014 | European Parliament | Central Italy | FI | 81,955 | YElected | |
| 2019 | European Parliament | Central Italy | FI | 17,789 | NNot elected | |
| 2024 | European Parliament | Central Italy | FI | 8,007 | NNot elected | |
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