Chiara Frangi Cleared Over Pandoro Charity Claims (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: An influencer known as the Italian Kim Kardashian has avoided jail and been cleared of all aggravated fraud charges over this, a Christmas cake. Chiara Frangi is one of Italy's most popular influencers and was even on Forbes' 2023 Top Creators list. A fashion blogger turned global influencer, she was known for her glitzy lifestyle, had a reality TV show on Amazon Prime, was global ambassador to multiple luxury fashion brands like Bvlgari, and even had a Barbie doll modelled after her. The scandal goes back to 2022 when the influencer's fashion brand collaborated with Balocco, an Italian food company, to put out a limited edition pink Pandoro, or Italian Christmas cake, branded with her signature eye logo. She was accused of falsely claiming that proceeds from the sales of the cake would go to a children's hospital. It was later discovered that Balocco had paid a €50,000 donation to the hospital months earlier and Chiara Frangi and her companies were paid €1 million for the collaboration, which didn't go down well with the Italian public. She'd been on trial facing charges of aggravated fraud with a potential jail sentence of one year and eight months, but always claimed she was innocent. The judge ruled that the charges were not admissible in court because Frangi had paid €3.4 million to the complainants. The cake scandal marked the beginning of her fall from grace. Brands cut ties with her and she lost thousands of followers. The Italian government even created a new law in response, known as the Frangi Law, aimed at making charitable donations by influencers more transparent. Frangi has continued to post content to her 28 million Instagram followers throughout the scandal, though hasn't said much about it. Now that the case is closed, can she rebuild her reputation and regain trust?