Anyone who looked around the front row at Fashion Week in Milan recently might have noticed: Chiara Ferragni, Italy’s most famous and successful influencer, was missing. The fashion blogger from the very beginning was a welcome guest at Prada and Co. for years – but since Christmas nothing has been the same in her glamor world.

At that time it came out that she had cheated on a charity campaign of all things. The entrepreneur, who also earns money on social networks, had advertised a special Christmas cake. The pastries came in Chiara pink and part of the proceeds, she led her followers to believe, would go to children with cancer in a Turin hospital. In reality, only the cake manufacturer himself donated the relatively small sum of 50,000 euros in advance. Ferragni had to pay a fine and the public prosecutor’s office is now examining similar cases. The 37-year-old lost sponsorship contracts – and apparently also her regular place at Milan Fashion Week. However, who was there at the Versace show was Ferragni’s husband, the rapper Fedez.

She has been married to him since 2018, and the two like to portray themselves as a picture-perfect family with their children Leone, five, and Vittoria, two. But as soon as the career crisis hits, there is also a private crisis: Italian media are reporting on an alleged separation of the couple. The newspaper “Corriere della Sera” carried a big interview with Ferragni last week, in which she was also asked about her marriage: Why are the couple so rarely seen together, especially now? “He hasn’t been there on many weekends in the last few weeks. But he’s been there on others. In any case, he’s my husband,” she emphasized. If there is a lot of chaos from outside, a couple should keep their problems to themselves, she added.

Fedez added new fuel to the fire with his solo appearance at Fashion Week: When asked about his wife, he replied diplomatically that their children were their top priority. The two were previously considered an influential couple in the country and also positioned themselves politically in the public eye. Together they are said to be worth around 60 million euros. But it is said in Italy that people will not forgive them so quickly for the cake scandal. Corporate fraud is one thing, but the fact that it involved sick children, of all things, is not well received in this child-friendly country.

It cannot be ruled out that Fedez will now abandon the sinking ship.

Sources: “Corriere della sera”, “Bild”