Lucarelli receives threats over Lodi restaurateur death

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 16 - Influencer, journalist and TV personality Selvaggia Luccarelli on Tuesday published some of the threats she has received from people blaming her for the death of Giovanna Pedretti, the 59-year-old restaurateur who is believed to have committed suicide after being exposed for allegedly writing a fake review to get publicity for her pizzeria.
    "I know where you live, watch your back because your hours are numbered. I'll stab you when you least expect it. This is not a joke," reads one of them, published by Lucarelli on Instagram.
    "Nobody cares about this dead lady. Everyone is using her to feast at their table," said Lucarelli on Tuesday in a separate post on X, formerly Twitter.
    "Politics. The colleagues who disliked me. The newspapers themselves," added the left-leaning journalist whose big social media following has been boosted by her being the most outspoken judge on the Italian edition of Dancing with the Stars.
    She also said that "for a while" she would only use Instagram.
    Lucarelli has come under fire along with her partner, liberal celebrity chef and influencer Lorenzo Biagiarelli, and state broadcaster Rai's left-leaning Rai3 news channel Tg3, for creating the online backlash that allegedly drove Pedretti to her death by exposing her claim that she had barred a customer over his complaint he had been seated next to a gay couple and a boy in a wheelchair to be false.
    Investigators have opened a probe into instigation to suicide without suspects in order to establish the true origin of the allegedly fake review post. (ANSA).