On November 21, 2023, Riccardo Simonetti (31) dropped his love bombshell on Instagram. With palpable enthusiasm, he informed his approximately 500,000 followers about a happy event in his private life: “I’ve thought for a long time about whether and how I should tell you this, but I just can’t find the right words. So let’s get started: We’re engaged. ” In the accompanying photo, he proudly held out his sparkling ring to the camera, while his fiancé Steven could only be glimpsed behind his fingers. The presenter, known from TV shows such as “ZDF- Fernsehengarten” or “Legendär”, explained on Instagram why he thought carefully about making this good news public and never showed his fiancé’s face in other photos.
In his most recent post on March 11th, he posted a loving smooching photo of him and his lover, garnished with a hateful online comment that he had previously received in response to this picture. “I hope you get treated with hostility a lot,” wrote a visitor to his social media account.
Next to this montage, Simonetti placed a detailed statement against the omnipresent online bullying that he personally faces on a daily basis. In it, he answered the question of why he doesn’t show his partner’s face on social media with the following words: “Comments like these hurt me, who reads something like this every day. How does that feel for a person who “I’m not used to being judged and judged? Sometimes I wish that it would be a little easier, but unfortunately I don’t trust how people behave here these days.”
In his experience, social media “has long since had nothing to do with being social.” He himself decided to live a life in public, “with both the beautiful and the difficult sides.” But not his fiancé. At some point the day will surely come when his followers will see his fiancé’s face. Until then, however, it comforts him to know “that he doesn’t have to read something so horrible.”
For many years, Riccardo Simonetti has passionately fought for the LGBTQ community and equality at all levels. Not least as the author of several books, such as the autobiographical work “My Right to Sparkle” or the “Spiegel” bestseller “Mama, I’m Gay”, which he wrote together with his mother.
