Mussolini’s Granddaughter Wins Celebrity Big Brother

Alessandra Mussolini just won Italy’s version of Celebrity Big Brother — and she has zero regrets about any of it.

The 63-year-old former actress, model, and politician was crowned the winner of Grande Fratello VIP on the night of May 20, walking away with the €100,000 (roughly $116,000) cash prize after outlasting 15 other contestants. Half of that prize is reportedly set to be donated to charity. “I enjoyed everything to the fullest, just as I am. I regret nothing,” she said following her televised victory.

Italian broadsheet Corriere della Sera praised her run on the show, calling her “bossy, over the top, irresistible, strong-willed and light-hearted.” Audiences, it seems, agreed.

What makes the win fascinating — and more than a little complicated — is the surname she carries. Alessandra is the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator who dismantled Italian democracy, banned Jewish Italians from public life, allied with Adolf Hitler, and was killed by partisans in 1945. That name has followed her everywhere, shaped her entire public life, and yet never once stopped her.

“Everyone told me not to do Big Brother,” she admitted. “But every time people tell me ‘don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it,’ I instantly think: ‘I’ll do it now.’”

A Life That’s Never Been Quiet

Alessandra was born on December 30, 1962, the daughter of Romano Mussolini — Benito’s son, and a jazz pianist — and Maria Loren, the younger sister of legendary Italian actress Sophia Loren. That combination of surnames alone tells you something about the world she grew up in.

She started out in entertainment, acting in films and appearing twice on the cover of Playboy. In 1982, she released a city pop album called Amore, singing in Italian, Japanese, and English — and briefly became a genuine pop sensation in Japan. Tracks like “Tokyo Fantasy” and “Tears” have since found a whole new life online, racking up millions of views on YouTube as the city pop revival brought a fresh wave of fans to her music decades later.

Her film career came to an abrupt end in 1990 when a producer asked her to change her surname. She refused, and that was that.

Politics came next. She entered the Italian Parliament in 1992 as a member of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement — the same party that launched the career of Giorgia Meloni, now Italy’s prime minister. Over the decades that followed, she served in both houses of the Italian Parliament, founded her own party (Social Action, making her the first woman to lead a political party in Italy, in 2004), and was elected to the European Parliament multiple times, most recently returning as an MEP in November 2022 after Antonio Tajani joined the Meloni government. She is currently affiliated with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s Lega party.

Her politics have never fit neatly into a box. Despite her roots in post-fascist movements, she has taken progressive stances on abortion, gay rights, artificial insemination, and civil unions, and has described herself as a feminist — drawing criticism from conservatives who’ve called her a “socialist.” In 2003, she resigned from the National Alliance Party after its leader Gianfranco Fini called fascism the “absolute evil” and described the wartime puppet state as “shameful.” Alessandra said the resignation came down to “incompatibilities not so much with my politics as with the surname I carry.”

There have been genuine controversies too. In 2007, she declared all Romanians to be criminals, triggering mass outcry and nearly blowing up her own European Parliament faction when five Romanian politicians threatened to walk. In 2019, she publicly called Jim Carrey a “bastard” after he posted a cartoon depicting the 1945 execution of her grandfather and his mistress Clara Petacci. And in 2006, during a parliamentary exchange with transgender activist and future MP Vladimir Luxuria, she made a homophobic slur that drew widespread condemnation.

The Reality TV Chapter

Alessandra first stepped away from politics in December 2020 — and went straight to the dance floor, placing third on Italy’s Ballando con le Stelle (Dancing With the Stars). She’s also appeared as a judge on the 2006 reality show La pupa e il secchione, co-hosted a Sunday talk show in the early 1980s, and even voiced Marge Simpson’s friend Tammy in an Italian dub of The Simpsons.

Grande Fratello VIP, though, is her biggest reality moment yet. She reflected on the experience with genuine warmth. “Suddenly, you find yourself without your cell phone, and you can finally reflect, talk deeply with others, and this helps you rediscover inner truths that never come to light even within your own family,” she told Italian outlet Leggo. Her secret to winning? Simply being herself. “People didn’t know me in this light: only there did they see my daily life,” she said. “Beyond any label and prejudice.”

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In Italy, where the legacy of fascism remains politically charged but has rarely proven career-ending, Alessandra Mussolini has spent six decades turning one of history’s most loaded surnames into a platform — for politics, for pop music, for television, and now for a six-figure reality TV prize. Whatever you make of her, she has never once been easy to ignore.