What's the Italian for sleazeball? Italy's 首相 捨てるd her partner after he was caught on tape 誇るing of an 事件／事情／状勢 and asking for a threesome... But was the 記録，記録的な／記録するing 漏れるd by her enemies in the Berlusconi 一族／派閥??
By anyone's 基準s, it was a lewd and crass request. 'Can I touch my crotch while I talk to you?' the Italian TV host asked a woman backstage on his 現在の 事件／事情／状勢s show.
He went on: 'You know that [a 同僚] and I are having an 事件／事情／状勢? Everyone here knows it. Now you do, too. But we are looking for a third 関係者 because we do threesomes and even foursomes.'
It was jaw-dropping stuff ― and all the more shocking because the individual wasn't just any old creep. The extravagantly bequiffed presenter was Andrea Giambruno, the First Gentleman of Italy, partner of the 総理大臣 Giorgia Meloni and father to her daughter Ginevra.
To make 事柄s worse, this tawdry 交流 was just one of many such interactions. To Meloni's humiliation and fury last week, 多重の 'hot mic' recordings ― conversations that took place when Giambruno didn't realise his microphone was still on ― 明らかにする／漏らすd his true character.
多重の 'hot mic' recordings ― conversations that took place when Giambruno didn't realise his microphone was still on ― 明らかにする／漏らすd the true character of Andrea Giambruno, the partner of the 総理大臣 Giorgia Meloni?
He rubbed the arm of Viviana Guglielmi (pictured), while admiring her outfit. 'Why didn't I 会合，会う you sooner?' he asked, patting her 長，率いる and wondering if she was in a better mood than the day before
His antics were just as repulsive on camera. In one animated 陳列する，発揮する caught on film, he struts around the 始める，決める, talking at 広大な／多数の／重要な 速度(を上げる）, 匂いをかぐing from time to time, 断言するing often and grabbing his crotch for rhetorical 強調.
He 誇るs of his luscious hair, which he also keeps touching, before alighting on his co-presenter sitting at her desk.
He rubs the arm of Viviana Guglielmi, while admiring her outfit. 'Why didn't I 会合，会う you sooner?' he asked, patting her 長，率いる and wondering if she was in a better mood than the day before.
But, perhaps because of his position as the PM's partner, or 簡単に because they were 企て，努力，提案ing their time, nobody had called out his sleazy behaviour ― until now.
With the スキャンダル having （海，煙などが）飲み込むd Italian politics, Giambruno's past has come under 前例のない scrutiny and what has come to light raises intriguing questions.
にもかかわらず 卒業生（する）ing in philosophy from Milan's カトリック教徒 university in 2003, one of Giambruno's first 職業s was as chauffeur to one of the most 議論の的になる characters in Italian showbusiness, Lele Mora.
'Lele Mora was like a ローマ法王 in Italy,' says one TV insider. 'He was the スパイ／執行官 of many, many 星／主役にするs.'
Giambruno 繰り返して heaped 賞賛する on one person in particular: a leggy blonde TV presenter called Simona Branchetti (pictured)
He was also an intimate associate of the late 億万長者 実業家 and Mediaset boss Silvio Berlusconi. Most of the beautiful young starlets who appeared on Mediaset's TV channels, and those who serviced the former serial 首相 at his Bunga Bunga orgies, were sourced by Mora.
Indeed, it was Mora who introduced the permatanned 政治家，政治屋 to Karima El Mahroug, the underage (17-year-old) courtesan known as Ruby The Heartstealer, who was the 焦点（を合わせる） of a 合法的な 事例／患者 that brought 負かす／撃墜する the Bunga Bunga empire ― and led to Mora's 有罪の判決 for 補佐官ing and abetting 売春.
The 有罪の判決 was just one of a number of 犯罪の 裁判，公判s he has been embroiled in. He has been 罪人／有罪を宣告するd of 麻薬-取引，協定ing, 税金 回避 and 誤った 破産. Mora himself is gay. In 1975, he opened one of the first gay night-clubs in Italy ― the Lele Club in Verona ― and he was romantically 伴う／関わるd with many of the young men who worked for him (含むing a 悪名高い gossip columnist called Fabrizio Corona).
It's not known 正確に／まさに what Giambruno did for Mora beyond his 偉業／利用するs behind the wheel. No one is 示唆するing that he had anything to do with procuring girls but working so closely with the showbiz Svengali, Giambruno cannot have failed to 証言，証人／目撃する the sordid 交差点 of politics, 売春 and showbusiness.
And it certainly didn't 阻止する him. He seems to have 設立する his natural home in this empire of sleaze, going on to work for Berlusconi's trashy TV channels ― 推定では with Mora's help ― where his rise was meteoric.
One of his first 職業s was with one of Mora's 'boys', Alfonso Signorini. As the host of the Italian 見解／翻訳／版 of Big Brother and one-time editor of Berlusconi's gossip magazine, Chi ― Italian for 'Who' ― Signorini is now the most powerful man in Mediaset.
It soon looked as if Giambruno was in for a stellar career. He moved from show to show and, evidently realising that a political 同盟（する） would help his TV career, shrewdly hitched himself to a rising 政治家，政治屋 from the country's neo-国粋主義者／ファシスト党員 party, Fratelli d'Italia ― the blonde, ruthlessly ambitious Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni and Giambruno are said to have first met in a TV studio in 2014 when she was 調書をとる／予約するd to appear on a 雑談（する） show. The story goes that she was famished, asked for something to eat during an 広告 break and was given a 白人指導者べったりの東洋人.
Unfortunately, she was still 持つ／拘留するing the remains of it when the show went live again and it was Giambruno who 急ぐd 今後 and snatched it off her. It was, he said, love at first sight.
But her 関係 with the womanising Giambruno was always fiery.
She once told an interviewer: 'I don't 肉体的に attack, except when I'm jealous. That happens every now and again.'
Since the スキャンダル broke, Giambruno's Mediaset 同僚s have been いっそう少なく than flattering about him, with one 述べるing the presenter as a 'smarmy boor'
She told another interviewer that she frequently snooped on her partner's 動きやすい phone: 'If men have done something wrong, you know it because they just don't know how to cover it up. Even if they've 削除するd a text message I start doing all the 研究. I look at the phone calls from a week before, all the photos...'
And, 存在 PM, she had more 資源s than most 怪しげな girlfriends when it comes to keeping tabs on her lover. She has 認める to using the 安全 services to check up on Giambruno, a 極悪の misuse of 力／強力にする.
'I call the secret service,' she said. 'I even have a friend at the 省 of the 内部の called Matteo Salvini. I ask him: 'Listen, excuse me, I need printouts of these phone 記録，記録的な／記録するs'.'
But one possible 調印する of her lover's philandering was hiding in plain sight. Giambruno wrote a column for the Italian daily newspaper Il 速度 under the pseudonym Arnaldo Magro.
He was outed as the author of the column in May and, in the 影響 of this week's スキャンダル, the Italian gossip website, Dagospia, trawled through his columns and discovered that Giambruno 繰り返して heaped 賞賛する on one person in particular: a leggy blonde TV presenter called Simona Branchetti.
'She's the goose that lays the golden egg,' he wrote, 賞賛するing her 'crazy' 見解（をとる）ing 人物／姿／数字s and drooling about how she was 'beautiful but above all able'.
Many now assume that she was the lover he had 誇るd about in the off-空気／公表する rec ordings but Branchetti herself has 否定するd it.
Jealousy was not the only serpent in Meloni's 楽園, however. Her political base is the resolutely 右翼 end of the political spectrum and her motto, borrowed from Benito Mussolini, is 'God, Fatherland, Family'. But Giambruno 率直に 同意しないd with her about gay 権利s and soft 麻薬s, perhaps because of the time he had spent in Mora's company.
Even after their daughter's birth in 2016 he was 気が進まない to settle 負かす／撃墜する to family life. 'I have a gypsy heart,' he said earlier this month. It didn't help that, while Meloni was based in Rome, he worked ― and often stayed ― in Milan until the beginning of September this year when, ironically, Mediaset moved 生産／産物 of his show, Diario Del Giorno (Daily Diary), to the 資本／首都.
Since the スキャンダル broke, Giambruno's Mediaset 同僚s have been いっそう少なく than flattering about him, with one 述べるing the presenter as a 'smarmy boor'.
They 表明するd astonishment that he was 信用d to 前線 a serious news programme in the 影響 of his partner's 選挙（人）の victory in September 2022. Not only was he too lightweight, it was a （疑いを）晴らす 衝突 of 利益／興味. Meloni is often （刑事）被告 of 欠如（する）ing gravitas too. In one 特に unedifying 選挙 ビデオ, she bounced two large melons on her chest, 勧めるing people to 投票（する） for a surname that means 'melons'.
After Meloni's 選挙 as 総理大臣, Giambruno's arrogance knew no bounds. But it quickly became 明らかな that, for all his swagger, Giambruno's rise had far outstripped his talent.
He made countless gaffes that embarrassed Meloni and her 政府. After the German Health 大臣 非難するd the sweltering heat he experienced during his holiday in Tuscany in July on 気候 change, Giambruno said: 'You don't like the heat in Italy? Stay in the 黒人／ボイコット Forest.'
A month later, during a discussion about two ギャング（団） 強姦s in southern Italy, Giambruno argued that women would be more 安全な 'if you 避ける getting drunk and losing your senses'.
He was becoming, says the TV insider, a 'spaccone', a braggart. He 明確に grew to believe that his status as the 首相's partner ― and his 役割 as a TV 星／主役にする in his own 権利 ― made him untouchable and he 除去するd all remaining ブレーキs on his off-the-cuff opinions and lechery.
But he 欠如（する）d the political 知能 to realise that he was a pawn in the chess game between two powerhouses of Italian politics: Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia party and the late Berlusconi's Forza Italia. Although 連合 partners, Meloni and her former 助言者 Berlusconi grew profoundly 怪しげな of each other.
Berlusconi, who had once been the colossus of Italian politics, 設立する his party relegated to third place in Meloni's 連合.
To have been usurped by a young blonde, a 種類 he 見解（をとる）d as playthings not 政治家，政治屋s, drove him to distraction.
On one occasion, aware that his 活動／戦闘s would be 選ぶd up by the 議会の TV cameras, he wrote on a piece of paper in 封鎖する 資本／首都s what he thought of Meloni: 'Opinionated, overbearing, arrogant, 侮辱ing, ridiculous... no 乗り気 to change, she is someone you cannot get along with.' He later said threateningly: 'Her man [Giambruno] is my 従業員.'
After his death in June this year, everyone spoke 温かく of the old rascal and Meloni's 政府 agreed to give Berlusconi a 明言する／公表する funeral. 旗s flew at half-mast on 政府 buildings, a gesture designed to keep both Berlusconi's party and his all-powerful マスコミ empire, Mediaset, onside.
But over the summer, the 関係 again turned sour. In a surprise move, Meloni's 政府 発表するd it would 税金 the big banks' windfall 利益（をあげる）s from 高金利s.
The Berlusconi family, which owns Banca Mediolanum, a venerable Milanese bank, was livid. They hadn't been 協議するd and began sharpening their knives.
Italy is a land of 共謀 theories and there are dozens of 見解／翻訳／版s of what happened next. It's possible that the Berlusconi family gave the green light to the dissemination of Giambruno's hideously embarrassing hot mic episode ーするために deliberately 負傷させる Meloni.
The Berlusconis have form for such behaviour, 定期的に stitching up 競争相手 政治家，政治屋s with 発覚s about their peccadilloes.
Yet many in Italy believe the recordings were 解放（する）d with Meloni's, and her party's, 同意. The タイミング is telling, with the cringe-inducing ビデオs finally broadcast days after Giambruno had 発表するd, in an interview with Chi: 'For as long as we keep getting asked, we won't marry.'
He 追加するd, rather unchivalrously: 'I don't take advice or orders from anyone. My quiff will 増加する with my 見解（をとる）ing 人物／姿／数字s.'
The whole interview dripped with entitlement, as if he considered himself above the 総理大臣. Perhaps Meloni read it and, 恐らく aware of the contents of the recordings since September, decided to 削減（する） him loose. Perhaps her 同僚s 警告するd her Giambruno was becoming a 義務／負債.
Within days of the out-takes 存在 空気／公表するd, Meloni had 公然と 捨てるd her man, 発表するing on social マスコミ: 'My 関係 with Andrea Giambruno ends here. Our paths have diverged for some time and the time has come to 認める it.' She said she would remain a '激しく揺する' にもかかわらず the drip-drip of 発覚s about her ex.
同様に as a personal 危機, the スキャンダル is also becoming a political one for Meloni. If she finds herself in the cross-hairs of Berlusconi's vindictive マスコミ empire, she's in 深い trouble. And unless Forza Italia and Fratelli d'Italia can patch up their differences, her 政府 is likely to last only months, not years.
Whatever one's politics, it's hard not to feel sympathy for Meloni, who has frequently spoken about her emotionally 騒然とした childhood. Her mother, a prolific writer of erotic novels, once 自白するd that she had planned to have Meloni 中止するd and only changed her mind on her way to the clinic.
Her father, a 共産主義者, walked out on the family when she was two years old, moving to the Canary Islands and having four more children before 存在 宣告，判決d to nine years for 麻薬-trafficking.
It doesn't take a psychiatrist to trace her 憎悪 of 共産主義 and her yearning for ― and politicisation of ― 'family' to that 早期に 外傷／ショック. She longed for a stable 国内の 始める，決める-up, 完全にする with 居住（者） father, for her own daughter.
As for Giambruno, he did what many people do when 捨てるd. The man who recently asked: 'Is it forbidden to have white teeth and 厚い hair?' went for a 過激な hair 削減（する）.
The quiff ― his former pride and joy ― is no more.
Meloni may hope that, like Samson in the Old Testament, Giambruno's sensual vitality will die with the loss of his luscious locks.
- Tobias Jones lives in Parma, northern Italy. He's the author of Ultra: The 暗黒街 Of Italian Football.
