The devastated mom of a woman who killed herself after a sex tape she sent to a former lover went viral has spoken about the moment she realized her daughter was dead.
Tiziana Cantone, 31, hanged herself at her aunt’s home while her mother Maria Teresa Giglio was at work in September last year after enduring months of cruel taunts from online trolls.
Her devastated mom told the BBC how she received a phone call from her sister-in-law telling her to come home from work immediately on the day of Tiziana’s death.
She said: “When I got here I saw the police, the ambulance and I quickly understood.
“My sister-in-law tried to pick her up and save her. My neighbours didn’t allow me to get out of my car. I almost fainted. They didn’t want to let me into this house. I wasn’t even able to see her for a last time. The day she died, my life ended.”
Giglio also forced herself to watch the video in a bid to understand what had happened to her daughter, telling the BBC she is convinced Tiziana was under the effect of drugs.
She said: “You can only imagine what it is like. I wanted to see details that would allow me to understand the truth. That was not my Tiziana.”
She also believes the video was distributed as part of a “premeditated, criminal plan” – and urged Tiziana’s former boyfriend to help her get to the truth.
In November 2016, prosecutors reportedly questioned him for 10 hours but no charges were brought and it has never been proven who posted the videos.
But after the video emerged online, Tiziana became a national laughing stock.
Her heartbreaking suicide at her aunt’s house prompted an outpouring of grief and anger in Italy, as the nation struggles to come to terms with the horrifying consequences of sexually shaming women.
For her family, the sympathy has come far too late for Tiziana.
Her mother said Tiziana was a “sensitive” girl who could not cope with the notoriety that came from the sex tape, which was viewed online by more than a million people.
Maria, who was so distraught at Tiziana’s funeral that she had to be carried in, said: “She was hurting and at times took refuge in alcohol.
“But she was always a healthy and normal girl.”
Following the leak, tormented Tiziana twice attempted to take her own life before she finally succeeded, according to Giglio.
Her ordeal began in the spring of 2015, when she sent a video of herself performing a sex act on a man to a handful of people she trusted, including her ex.
To her horror, the video was widely shared on WhatsApp and other social media sites, being copied and republished thousands of times.
On the clip, Tiziana can be heard telling her lover: “You’re making a video? Bravo!”
The line became an internet joke and was printed on T-shirts and smartphone cases.
Betting firm Paddy Power turned it into a marketing slogan and one joker even got the line tattooed on his neck.
Meanwhile, two footballers in Italy’s top flight, Paolo Cannavaro and Antonio Floro Flores, posted their own video mocking the X-rated clip.
Poking fun at Tiziana had become a national pastime.
As the footage spread, Tiziana’s full name was revealed and she was inundated with online abuse when her video found its way on to porn websites — accompanied by cruel comments, jeering parodies and edited screenshots.
Rumours circulated that she hoped to become a porn star and she featured regularly on gossip blogs.
Her intimate act had become so public that Tiziana found herself being recognised and abused in the street. Hoping to escape the ridicule, Tiziana quit her job, moved from Naples to the rural region of Tuscany and tried to change her name.
But the humiliation followed her and she began to feel like there was no escape. Close friends say she was deeply depressed.
In a last-ditch bid to salvage her reputation, Tiziana mounted a legal challenge calling for the “right to be forgotten”.
After a lengthy court battle, a judge ruled that the video should be removed from various sites and search engines, including Facebook.
But the victory was bittersweet, with Tiziana ordered to pay $21,000 in legal costs — a kick in the teeth that local media dubbed “the final insult”.
After her death it was still easy to find images from the video online, despite the court judgement.
Tiziana’s mother said: “She was suffering from everything she saw and heard — in particular from the outcome of the legal proceedings, because she believed justice hadn’t been done.”
Tiziana decided there was no way out but to end her life.
A friend said she “wanted to leave everything behind”. Her suicide was greeted with a mixture of shock and shame in Italy.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said: “As a government, there’s not a lot we can do. It’s mainly a cultural battle — also a social and political battle. Our commitment is to try to do everything we can . . . violence against women is not an ineradicable phenomenon.”
Close pal Teresa Pertosino accused many of those publicly mourning Tiziana of being complicit in her death by allowing themselves to be entertained and titillated by her ordeal.
She said: “I wonder how anyone can be so fierce, to rage against a girl who has not done anything wrong. They should be ashamed, all those who filled the web of insults and secretly watched the images.”
But others continue to condemn Tiziana. Walter Caputo, a Turin city councillor, wrote on Facebook that she had been “aiming for a certain notoriety” by sending the video and was “certainly not a saint”. He has since apologized.
On Twitter, women expressed solidarity with her.
Elkisa d’Ospiano wrote: “The Tiziana Cantone story is an example of how we’re slaves to the judgment of others and never really free.”
Some suggested a man would not have been criticized in the same way for making a sex tape.
Given Tiziana was desperate to regain her privacy, it was ironic that her funeral procession on Thursday was televised, with commentators queuing up to try to make sense of her death.
Journalist and author Roberto Saviano blamed her fate on Italy’s “morbid” relationship with sex, saying: “I grieve for Tiziana, who killed herself because she was a woman in a country where uninhibited and playful sex is still the worst of sins.”
One mourner said she was surprised by how few men attended the funeral, telling reporters: “There were many women and very few men. This made me feel really bad.”
Tiziana’s family are now calling for tougher legal sanctions against the sort of shaming that she endured.
In a statement, they said: “We call for the justice system to act so that her death was not in vain.”
Tiziana Cantone was a woman who desperately wanted to be forgotten.
But now it is also hoped she will be remembered for the issues she highlighted – so no one else suffers the same terrible torment she did.
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