Alessandra Mussolini (born 30 December 1962) is an Italian politician, the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, and a former actress, singer, and model. She currently serves as a Member of the European Parliament for Forza Italia. In 2004, she became the first woman to lead a political party in Italy. She was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013 and the Italian Senate from 2013 to 2014 where she was elected under The People of Freedom which is now part of Forza Italia. She was elected to the European Parliament in 2014.
She was the founder and leader of the national conservative political party Social Action; from 2004 until 2008, Mussolini also served as a Member of the European Parliament, and she has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament, for The People of Freedom.
Mussolini left politics, temporarily, in December 2020 for a new television career, but in November 2022 she returned as MEP, succeeding Antonio Tajani, after his election to the Chamber of Deputies.
Early and personal life
Alessandra Mussolini was born in Rome, the daughter of Romano Mussolini, the fourth son of Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, and Anna Maria Villani Scicolone (born 11 May 1938, Rome). Actress Sophia Loren is her maternal aunt. She has a half-sister, Rachele Mussolini, who is also a politician as a member of Brothers of Italy.
From 1976 to 1980 she went to high school at the American Overseas School of Rome. She graduated in 1994 from Sapienza University of Rome, where she got her Master of Science in medicine and surgery.
She married customs policeman Mauro Floriani on 28 October 1989. Contrary to tradition, she proposed to him. Together they have three children, 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.
Her husband was one of the accused scheduled to appear in court for a child prostitution trial in 2015. In 2013, around 50 men—among them celebrities, professionals, priests, journalists and politicians—were accused of paying two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15, for sexual services in Rome.
She is first cousin once-removed to Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, Benito Mussolini's great-grandson, who ran for the Fratelli d’Italia party in the 2019 European Parliament election. She considers herself Roman Catholic, although she does not attend Mass regularly.
In 2001, Mussolini was involved in an altercation while filming for a Porta a Porta talk show episode on sexual harassment. She was verbally accosted by Katia 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."
She has been a painter since 2014 and her first solo exhibition was held during 2015 in Rome.
Entertainment career
Mussolini was taken under the wing of her aunt Sophia Loren for a while and started a career as an actress in the Italian film industry during the 1970s. A Special Day (1977), in which she had a minor role as "Maria Luisa," won an American Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
During 1982, Mussolini released a pop music album of romantic songs under the title Amore on Alfa Records; the album was released only in Japan and has since become something of a collectors item.
Mussolini also appeared as a glamour model, including on the cover of two European editions of Playboy, in Italy (August 1983) and Germany (November 1983). "When you are an actress, you are dealing with the body. Every actress does topless and stuff like this; you have to," she has said.
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 as The Assisi Underground in which she played a nun; the movie focused on the Roman Catholic Church rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943. 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.
Discography
Albums
Amore 1982 (Alfa Records)
Singles
Love Is Love (1982) Tokyo Fantasy (1982)