1. Beppe Grillo has been involved in politics since 2009 as the co-founder of the Italian Five Star Movement political party.
39 Facts About Beppe Grillo
1. 2.
Beppe Grillo was born in Genoa, Liguria, on 21 July 1948.
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Beppe Grillo studied as an accountant but did not finish university.
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Beppe Grillo participated in the variety show Secondo Voi from 1977 to 1978.
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Beppe Grillo often accuses the public broadcaster RAI of "public financing for the parties" that abuse it for their own propagandist needs.
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Beppe Grillo took aim at the Italian Socialist Party, which directly led to him having fewer television appearances after the mid-1980s.
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Beppe Grillo criticized Biagio Agnes, then the director of the STET, for dishonest business practices.
8.
On 19 May 2014, Beppe Grillo returned to Italian public television, RAI to participate in the popular late-night political debate talk show Porta a Porta as part of his campaign for the 2014 European Parliament election.
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Beppe Grillo's themes included energy use, political and corporate corruption, finance, freedom of speech, child labour, globalization and technology.
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Beppe Grillo expanded his influence to a larger audience with his website beppegrillo.
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Hence, Beppe Grillo was able to gain many followers who became disillusioned with mainstream Italian media.
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Beppe Grillo often receives letters from prominent figures such as Antonio Di Pietro, Fausto Bertinotti, Renzo Piano, and Nobel Prize Winners including Dario Fo, Joseph E Stiglitz, the Dalai Lama and Muhammad Yunus.
13.
Beppe Grillo has spoken in support of a universal basic income on both his blog and on social media.
14.
On 1 September 2005, Beppe Grillo used money donated by readers of his blog to buy a full-page advertisement in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, in which he called for the resignation of the Bank of Italy's then governor Antonio Fazio over the Antonveneta banking scandal.
15.
On 22 November 2005, Beppe Grillo bought a page in the International Herald Tribune, saying that members of the Italian Parliament ought not to represent citizens if they have been convicted of a crime, even in the first degree of the three available in the Italian system.
16.
Beppe Grillo maintains a regularly updated list of members of the Italian Parliament who have been convicted in all three degrees on his blog.
17.
On 26 July 2007, Beppe Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels, where he drew attention to the state of Italian politics.
18.
Beppe Grillo used the rally to urge Italians to sign a petition calling for the introduction of a "Bill of Popular Initiative" to remove from office Italian parliamentarians with criminal convictions.
19.
In 2014, Beppe Grillo announced that he was aiming to get four million signatures to support his attempts to get a referendum on Italy's membership of the Eurozone.
20.
Beppe Grillo collected around 200,000 signatures while the minimum is 500,000 but he announced that his project was going on despite the failure.
21.
In June 2018, Beppe Grillo published a post on his blog in which he called for selecting the members of the Italian Senate through sortition, and possibly eventually replacing elections with sortition altogether.
22.
On 7 December 1981 Beppe Grillo lost control of a Chevrolet K5 Blazer as he drove on a military road, forbidden to civilians, from Limone Piemonte to Colle di Tenda.
23.
Beppe Grillo saved himself out of the passenger compartment before the car dropped into the void and in state of shock he managed to call for help.
24.
On 14 March 1985 Beppe Grillo was found guilty of manslaughter.
25.
When Italian judges were investigating the Parmalat scandal, which was then the world's largest corporate bankruptcy scandal, Beppe Grillo was called to testify because he had anticipated the imminent collapse of the dairy conglomerate in one of his shows.
26.
In 2012 Beppe Grillo was convicted of having defamed Fininvest in an article published in 2004 in the Italian magazine Internazionale.
27.
In 2003, Beppe Grillo had called Galvagno "a briber" during a performance at the Teatro Alfieri in Asti.
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Beppe Grillo had to pay Galvagno 25,000 euros and interest from 2003 as compensation for damages, plus compensation for legal costs.
29.
In May 2012, Beppe Grillo published on the front page of his blog a mosaic of pictures with photographs of the PdL, PD and UDC administrators, along with those of former Lega Nord and The Daisy.
30.
In that occasion Beppe Grillo compared himself to Nelson Mandela and Sandro Pertini.
31.
On 31 March 2017 Beppe Grillo was formally investigated along with Alessandro Di Battista for defamation following a police report filed by Marika Cassimatis, former candidate mayor of the M5S in Genoa.
32.
On 11 July 2017 Beppe Grillo was convicted at the third and higher judgement level by the tribunal of Ancona to a payment of 6,000 euros, a provisional amount of 50,000 euros and payment of legal fees, raised to 12,000 euros for defamation against Professor Franco Battaglia.
33.
Beppe Grillo defended himself from similar attacks from the leader of the Democratic Party on this subject, saying he earned his pay over the years and paid his taxes on them.
34.
Beppe Grillo was criticized for having taken advantage of the, a tax amnesty granted by the first Berlusconi government in 2001, which Beppe Grillo had publicly opposed.
35.
Beppe Grillo has proposed that members of the Italian Parliament who have a criminal record should be banned from public office.
36.
Beppe Grillo says he is not interested in becoming a member of the Italian Parliament.
37.
Luttazzi accused Beppe Grillo of being a "demagogue" and a "populist", suggesting Beppe Grillo should choose between satire and politics.
38.
In 2008, Grillo was featured in the documentary The Beppe Grillo Story, produced by Banyak Films for Al Jazeera English.
39.
Beppe Grillo appeared in archive footage in the 2017 movie Call Me by Your Name.