Do we like Chiara Ferragni?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or company found and some real giving, but a regulator fined her companies over a charity promotion and she says she wouldn't do it again.
Chiara Ferragni is Italy's best-known influencer, with more than 28 million Instagram followers, a fashion brand and campaign deals around the world. We couldn't verify much of her early backstory from reputable pages we could open, so this card is built on the big thing that defines her lately: Pandoro-gate.
Here's the story. In 2022 a limited-edition Balocco Christmas cake carrying her name sold for about 9 euros instead of roughly 3, and buyers were led to think it would help a Turin children's hospital. In fact the hospital got a single 50,000-euro donation from the confectioner. In December 2023 Italy's competition watchdog fined two of her companies 1 million euros for unfair commercial practices, and Balocco 420,000 euros.
She apologised in public. In a March 2024 TV interview she said she was “sorry” and wouldn't do such operations again, calling the mix of charity and commerce a mistake. Prosecutors still took it further and sought one year and eight months in prison for aggravated fraud, which she denied.
On 14 January 2026 a Milan court acquitted her. She posted that she wasn't celebrating a victory but “closing a chapter”, and said there was no reason for her to deceive anyone. Her lawyers argued the matter had been dealt with by the competition authority, and those fines stand.
On the harm test, nothing harmful turned up in what we read: no slide into conspiracies, no campaigning against any group, no dodgy collaborators. On the other side of the ledger, she announced she would hand her 2023 Sanremo co-hosting fee to an anti-violence network for women. That's honestly a thin file, so treat the pass as 'nothing found' rather than a deep dive.
The good stuff is real, if partly the product of being cornered. As part of a December 2024 agreement with consumer group Codacons, she agreed to pay 200,000 euros towards an organisation helping women victims of violence, plus compensation to pandoro buyers. Giving after a stoush still counts as giving, but you can see why some folks stay cross.