Beppe Grillo Biography

Beppe Grillo was born Giuseppe Piero Grillo, on July 21, 1948, in Genoa, a port city in Liguria, Italy.

Being a talented musician and comedian, Beppe was often seen performing at local nightclubs as a teenager.

He had initially decided to be an accountant and had even joined his father’s business in 1968. However, he left it soon after to build a career in comedy. He also quit studies without a degree.

Following high school, Italian TV host Pippo Baudo discovered Beppe after an audition.

In 1975, Beppe Grillo moved to Milan. From 1977 to 1978, he appeared on his debut variety show on TV, Secondo Voi. In 1979, he appeared on Enzo Trapani’s Luna Park and the variety show Fantastico.

In the 1980s, too, he appeared on many popular Italian TV shows, such as Te la do io l'America (1982) and Te lo do io il Brasile (1984). In 1982, he made his movie debut with Cercasi Gesù (Looking for Jesus).

He was then seen on the show Grillometro, which was tailormade for him. In 1986, he became part of an ad campaign for a yoghurt brand.

Over time, he became a known face on various shows that focused on political satire. In 1986, he criticized the China visit of the then-prime-minister of Italy and the leader of the Italian Socialist Party, Bettino Craxi. As a result, Beppe was barred from appearing on publicly owned TV channels.

A lot of politicians were offended by his jokes. In 1993, one of Beppe’s shows was allowed to be aired live on RAI and gained a record viewership of 15 million.

Beppe had also criticized Biagio Agnes, the then-director of the STET, for using dishonest means in his business. By the 1990s, Beppe became famous for his anti-establishment comedy/satire.

After remaining away from Italian TV for years, Beppe made a comeback on May 19, 2014, with the late-night political debate show Porta a Porta on RAI. His appearance was part of his 2014 European Parliament election campaign.

Beppe is now often seen performing stage comedy. His shows revolve around political and corporate corruption, freedom of speech, and globalization.

In 1993, Beppe Grillo exposed a billing scam in the Italian national telephone monopoly. During the Parmalat financial scandal, also known as the largest corporate bankruptcy in Europe, Beppe was called to testify against the food giant in court.

On September 1, 2005, Beppe raised money from his followers and purchased a full-page advertisement in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The ad asked for the resignation of Antonio Fazio, the then-governor of the Bank of Italy, due to the Antonveneta banking scandal.

In October that year, Beppe was declared by Time magazine as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his efforts to curtail corruption and financial scandals.

On November 22 that year, Beppe purchased a page in the International Herald Tribune, stating that any crime convict in the Italian Parliament should not to represent the Italian public.

He still updates a list of members of the Italian Parliament convicted in any degree of crime, on his blog.

On July 26, 2007, Beppe spoke to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels about the condition of Italian politics.

On September 8, 2007, he launched the V-Day movement (“V” being the first letter of the Italian word “vaffanculo,” meaning “fuck off"), to attack the Italian politicians convicted of various crimes. The countrywide movement saw a million people participating in it. This immense support from his country made him establish the Five Star Movement in 2009.

He also requested the Italian people to sign a petition to launch a "Bill of Popular Initiative" to oust all criminal offenders from the Italian parliament.

The second V-Day celebration was held on April 25, 2008, in Turin, San Carlo Square, and was dedicated to the Italian media and the government support it received. Beppe spoke about the lack of freedom of the Italian press, in the gathering.

In August 2008, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's program Foreign Correspondent aired a feature titled The Clown Prince, based on Beppe’s political activism.

In 2009, Beppe Grillo began a political movement named Movimento 5 Stelle (the Five Star Movement or the M5S) to promote his views on honesty and direct democracy through the internet.

The movement eventually turned into a party (with Gianroberto Casaleggio as its co-founder) and participated in the 2010 regional elections. Eventually, four of the party members were elected as regional councilors.

His party gained the third-highest number of votes in the 2012 local elections and won the mayoral election for Parma.

In the 2013 general election, the M5S secured 25.5% of the votes but had just 109 deputies of the 630, due to the electoral system that was in favor of parties which were part of a coalition. The M5S later became a member of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group in the European Parliament.

In 2014, Beppe campaigned for 4 million signatures in support of a referendum on Italy's membership of the Eurozone. He eventually collected around 200,000 signatures, much below the minimum requirement of 500,000. However, he stated that his project would continue in spite of his failure.

In 2017, Beppe resigned from the party leader’s post and was succeeded by Luigi Di Maio.

Beppe made a blog post in June 2018, calling for the selection of the members of the Italian Senate through sortition, and about eventually replacing elections with sortition. However, in January that year, he had disassociated his blog from the Five Star Movement.

On March 4, 2018, his party won by obtaining one-third of the total votes and became the largest party in the Italian Parliament.

After being inspired by internet entrepreneur Gianroberto Casaleggio, Beppe Grillo launched his own website, beppegrillo.it, in January 2005.

Over the years, his website became the breeding ground of all his ideas for his party, the Five Star Movement. In 2006, Time magazine declared the website one of the most influential websites to have been launched ever.

Another website, meetup.com, was used to boost his political campaigns. Beppe’s blog, which was initially maintained in three languages, English, Italian, and Japanese, was ranked one of the 10 most-visited blogs in the world by Technorati. In 2008, it was declared as one of the world’s most influential blogs by The Guardian.

He has been appreciated by eminent people such as Antonio Di Pietro (former Italian minister), Fausto Bertinotti (former president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies), Renzo Piano, and Nobel Prize winners Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dario Fo, the Dalai Lama, and Muhammad Yunus.

Over the years, he has made his blog an avenue to express his views on direct democracy and the possibility of building a fairer society. By December 2017, the Japanese and English versions of the blog became inactive. The English version was last updated in November 2015, while the Japanese version had updated its latest post in October 2011. The Italian version is updated regularly.

In 1981, three of Beppe’s friends died in a car crash. Beppe was driving the car. In 1985, he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Beppe was convicted of defaming the company Fininvest (managed by Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter) in 2012 and politician Giorgio Galvagno in 2013. He was also sentenced for defaming Antonio Misiani of the Democratic Party in 2013. Later, he was also convicted of defaming professor Franco Battaglia.

Beppe Grillo is married to Parvin Tadjik since 1996. They have four children: Ciro, Luna, Rocco, and Davide.