Chiara Ferragni, the most famous influencer in Italy and one of the most followed on the planet, is experiencing what is probably the biggest setback in her history. The businesswoman was hit by controversy over one of her supposedly charitable campaigns. The businesswoman sold pandoros, a traditional Christmas cake, with her logo for more than nine euros – three times the usual price – and claimed that the sale of each one would mean a donation to the Regina Margherita pediatric hospital in Turin. However, it came to light that this donation, of 50,000 euros, had been made a priori and that, therefore, its amount did not depend on sales. Ferragni would have pocketed around one million euros with this fraudulent campaign. The Italian published a video on her social networks in which she asked for forgiveness, announced that she would donate that million euros to the hospital and attributed this failure to a “communication error.”
But the networks are not forgiving and his empire of almost 30 million followers could be about to collapse. Several sponsors, as well as companies with which he worked regularly, are questioning his professionalism. The consumer organization Codacons, which reported this case, has also asked that another fundraiser for children with autism launched with the sale of the influencer’s Easter eggs, which were sold in 2021 and 2022, be investigated. has discovered that the collection exceeded one million, while the donation was only 36,000 euros.
The Italian group specialized in high-end glasses Safilo also announced the breaking of its collaboration with Ferragni through a vague statement. “The Safilo Group communicates the interruption of the license agreement for the design, production and distribution of the eyewear collections with the Chiara Ferragni brand following the violation of the contractual commitments of its owner.” These losses have also been reflected in a drop in her followers on Instagram. This is how the company specialized in digital strategy DeRev has analyzed it for the newspaper La Repubblica: it has pointed out that the Italian has lost around 90,000 followers, 0.3% of her community, since the controversy broke out.
