Chiara Ferragni, 36, with almost 30 million followers on Instagram, knew that the whole of Italy was watching her. On this Sunday, March 3, she was the guest on Che tempo che fa ("What's the weather like?"), a staple of public television, now broadcast on the private channel Nove. The influencer saw her life flash by in a video montage. She saw her youthful chestnut hair before she turned blonde. Shaking, she saw her face, captured in an endless stream of images, reproduced on magazine covers. She saw herself at the head of her company in a meeting room with white walls, saw her body dressed in gorgeous outfits, stepping one leg at a time out of imposing dark cars.

Taking the stage after a survivor of Libyan torture centers and the father of a feminicide victim, she saw her radiant reflection receive the City of Milan medal for her role in the fight against Covid-19. And, holding back her emotion behind her make-up, she saw herself ascending, at the peak of her glory, to the stage of the Sanremo Song Festival in February 2023, in a Dior gown evoking the naked body of a Renaissance Eve.

"That's the craze! The craze you've built!" said host Fabio Fazio. Just before, he confided to his guest that she reminded him of Robert Oppenheimer. The physicist invented the atomic bomb; the entrepreneur invented one of the most powerful machines of online influence, becoming immensely famous, immensely sought-after by brands and turning every moment of her existence and that of her family, formed with rapper Fedez and their two children, into paid posts. Oppenheimer ended up haunted by remorse at the destructive power of his creation; Ferragni saw the foundations of the marketing contracts and virtual communities she had patiently built begin to crumble.

'Pandoro Gate'

On March 3, Italian Instagram sensation had all eyes on her as she addressed the public for the first time since becoming embroiled in a scandal that captivated the entire nation. The spark that ignited the controversy was a pandoro, an Italian star-shaped brioche sprinkled with powdered sugar, traditionally served at Christmas. In mid-December, Italy's anti-trust authority fined Ferragni €1.1 million for a campaign carried out a year earlier with the Balocco brand. The campaign was deemed misleading because it implied that profits from a limited series of Ferragni brand pandoros, sold at triple the usual price, would be donated to a children's hospital in Turin. In fact, the manufacturer had already made a donation of €50,000, a modest sum compared to the around one million euros Ferragni received for her participation.

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