The Italian government wants to cut the pension of former porn actress Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) as a former member of parliament. Now the belligerent ex-muse of artist Jeff Koons is heading to fight one more time. Without further ado, she wants to become active again for the political party DNA, which she founded herself a few years ago.
The current Italian government has imposed austerity measures on the country. Among other things, former members of the Italian parliament have had their pensions cut. From a little over 3,000 euros a month to a thousand, a drastic cut that not everyone is willing to accept so quietly. Especially not a woman as combative as Ilona Staller, better known under her porn name Cicciolina.
The now 68-year-old has always been politically active alongside her active porn career, which reached its peak in the 80s. Already in the late 70s, she co-founded the first green party in Italy. In 1985, she joined the Partito Radicale and campaigned massively for human rights and pacifism and became an advocate of an anti-NATO policy. On this platform, she was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1987, where she was a member until 1991.
She was not re-elected and left the Partito Radicale in 1991 to found the Partito dell’Amore (Party of Love) with her friend, the porn actress Moana Pozzi (1961-1994), but it was only successful for a few years and is now considered more of satirical performance art. At this time she was also married to the famous pop artist Jeff Koons, who immortalized her in countless works of art that have become famous worldwide, and with whom she has a son.
Even after her divorce from Koons in 1994 and after the end of her active porn career, Staller never let go of the mixture of art performance, pornography, provocation and politics. During the Gulf War, she made Saddam Hussein an offer to sleep with him if he stopped all fighting in return. An offer she repeated to Osama Bin Laden in 2006. In 2002 she tried to start a political career in her native Hungary, but could not succeed.
In 2012 Staller founded her own party, which she called »DNA« – Democracy, Nature and Love. The party’s goals include the legalization of same-sex marriage, the reopening of Italian brothels and an unconditional basic income for all Italians. It is also fighting for changes in the Italian judiciary, which is plagued by corruption, and for the dismantling of the old elites who have kept their country on the verge of political chaos for decades.
The once extremely active artist had retired a few years ago and lived, among other things, from her pension as a former member of parliament, of which she was very proud, as she pointed out in several interviews.
So now Cicciolina is going back into battle to defend this very pension. She is using her own party to do so and wants to run again in the next elections to defeat the populist 5-star government, which is responsible for the pension cuts for MPs.
In an interview with the British daily newspaper Times, she said: »I’m furious about this unconstitutional cut. I will go back into politics to show that these politicians are cutting pensions of former MPs while keeping their own wages«. Blessed with an Old Testament sense of justice, she closes angrily: »Let’s cut their wages in half.«
So the Five-Star Movement, considered by many as an extremist party, has inadvertently created a powerful opponent.