Chiara Ferragni, Italy’s most famous influencer and one of the most followed on the planet, is experiencing what must probably be the worst slump in her history. The businesswoman was splashed by a controversy over one of her supposedly charitable campaigns. The businesswoman was selling pandoros, a traditional Christmas gingerbread, with her logo for more than nine euros – three times the usual price – and assured that the sale of each one would mean a donation to the Regina Children’s Hospital Margherita of Turin. However, it came to light that the donation, of 50,000 euros, had been made a priori and that, therefore, the amount did not depend on sales. Ferragni would have pocketed around one million euros with this fraudulent campaign. The Italian published a video on social networks in which she apologized, announced that she would donate the million euros to the hospital and attributed the decision to a “communication error”.

But the networks do not forgive and his empire of almost 30 million followers could be about to collapse. Several sponsors, as well as companies with which he worked assiduously, are questioning his professionalism. Consumer organization Codacons, which reported the case, has also called for an investigation into another fundraiser for children with autism launched with the sale of the influencer’s Easter eggs. It has been discovered that the collection exceeded the million, while the donation was 36,000 euros.

The Italian group specializing in high-end glasses Safilo also announced the breakup of its collaboration with Ferragni through a not very concise statement. “The Safilo Group announces the termination 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 holder”. These losses have also been reflected in a drop in his followers on Instagram. This is how the company specializing in digital strategy DeRev has analyzed it for the newspaper La Repubblica, and has pointed out that the Italian has lost around 90,000 followers, 0.3% of its community, since the controversy broke out.