Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shares AI lingerie photo in warning to country
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Taylor Swift, Social Media
Thomas Bamford
Featured Image Credit: Andreas SOLARO / AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Taylor Swift, Social Media
Sexualized deepfakes are becoming more and more of a problem across the globe, and it seems even Prime Ministers aren’t immune.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shared to X that she had been targeted by ‘zealous opponents’ in a series of sexualized deepfakes.
The pictures show her sitting on a bed in her underwear, with a reply from a social media users who suggested her appearance was 'shameful and unworthy of the institutional role she holds'.
The PM took the pictures in her stride, posting: “I must admit that whoever created them, at least in the attached case, has also improved me quite a bit.”
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Meloni went on to issue a stark warning to anybody sharing images on social media, urging people to be mindful of deepfakes which are illegal in Italy.
Italy was the first country in the EU which made deepfakes illegal, moving in 2025 to pass a law against the use of artificial intelligence to cause harm. This includes generating sexualized deepfakes.
This is not the time Meloni has been the subject of deepfake images, with doctored images appearing on a pornographic website that also included altered images of 'high-profile' women.
She sued two men for €100,000 in 2024 for posting fake videos of her on a pornographic website in the US.
As she shared the more recent images, Meloni warned: "Check before you believe, and believe before you share. Because today it’s happening to me; tomorrow it could happen to anyone.
"Deepfakes are a dangerous tool, because they can deceive, manipulate, and strike anyone. I can defend myself. Many others cannot."
In early 2024, explicit AI-generated, non-consensual images of pop star Taylor Swift went viral on X and other platforms, garnering tens of millions of views.
This incident brought national attention to the issue of deepfake pornography and spurred demands for stronger laws to protect against non-consensual sexual content.
Elon Musk's Grok on X also found itself in hot water following the launch of an image-editing feature in 2025, as it was used to generate millions of sexualized images, some of which were awful depictions of children.
The scandal sparked widespread investigations by the EU, Ofcom in the UK and Irish regulators.
On May 19, 2025, President Donald Trump signed into law the TAKE IT DOWN Act (Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act), establishing a major federal framework to combat non-consensual intimate imagery and AI-generated 'deepfakes'.
The Italian Prime Minister's press office were approached for comment.