She couldn’t have her cake and eat it too.
Italy’s most famous influencer, Chiara Ferragni, is paying out more than $2 million after being caught duping her nearly 30 million followers into thinking sales of a cake she was promoting would go to charity.
Ferragni, 36, was fined the equivalent of $1.2 million by competition watchdog AGCM for the misleading claims surrounding her Ferragni-branded pandoro, which is a lighter version of a panettone cake.
She then blamed a “communications error” for the scandal Monday while pledging the equivalent of another $1.1 million to a children’s cancer hospital used in the bogus promotion.
The fashion influencer’s atonement came after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took a dig at the businesswoman.
“The real models to follow are not the influencers who make a lot of money by wearing clothes and showing bags … or even promoting expensive cakes that make people believe they are charitable,” Meloni said on Sunday, without mentioning her by name.
Italy’s most famous influencer, Chiara Ferragni, is paying out more than $2 million after being caught duping her followers into thinking sales of a cake she was promoting would go to charity. Balocco
The fashion influencer’s atonement came after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took a dig at the businesswoman. Getty ImagesCake maker Balocco was also fined $460,000 for its alleged role in conning customers that sales of the cake would benefit a bone cancer charity at a hospital in Turin.
Balocco only made a $55,000 payment to the hospital months before the Ferragni pandoro was launched and Ferragni made no donations while her companies received 1 million euros — around $1.1 million — for the branding collaboration, regulators said.
On Monday, a contrite Ferragni pledged to make a large donation to the hospital at the center of the scandal, Regina Margherita, in a video liked nearly 1.4 million times by Wednesday afternoon.
Ferragni was fined the equivalent of $1.2 million by competition watchdog AGCM for the misleading claims. Chiara Ferragni / Instagram
Ferragni pledged to make a large donation to the hospital at the center of the scandal, Regina Margherita, in a video liked nearly 1.4 million times. @chiaraferragni / Instagram“I realized I had made a communication error. A mistake that I will treasure in the future, completely separating any charitable activity, which I have always done and will continue to do, from commercial activities,” she said in Italian, according to Google Translate.
The influencer said she is fighting the “disproportionate and unfair” fine levied by Rome officials.
“But, if the final sanction were to be — as I hope — lower than that decided by the AGCM, the difference will be added to the million euros,” she told her followers of the amount pledged to the hospital.
With Post wires
