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Placebo frontman Brian Molko is facing criminal charges after offering some pointed onstage political commentary during a July 2023 performance at Italy’s Sonic Park Stupinigi festival. Italian prosecutors charged him with “contempt of the institutions” for calling Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a “piece of shit, fascist, racist,” according to British press reports. Meloni previously sued Molko for the remarks.
Meloni, who has led the right-wing Brothers of Italy party since 2014, became Italy’s first female prime minister in 2022. A spokesman for Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio told The Telegraph that Molko is likely to face a fine, rather than prison time, if convicted of the charges. A representative for Placebo didn’t immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee has noted that Italy has seen an increased number of legal actions against public figures, including journalists and artists, under Meloni’s leadership. She has a notable fanbase among American right-wing figures, who praised a speech in which she promised to “defend God, family, and country” and claimed“those who would like us to no longer have an identity” won’t let her define herself as “Italian, Christian, woman, mother.”
In 2022, Placebo released Never Let Me Go, their first album in nearly 10 years. “I wanted to do something that had a certain brutality to it, either sonically or lyrically,” Molko told Rolling Stone U.K. “It was almost like wiping the slate clean since the last album, which had been quite troubled.”
