Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has revealed she accidentally burnt her house down as a child and was left homeless.
Ms Meloni, 48, recalled building a makeshift fort with her older sister and lighting a candle inside it before a blaze destroyed her home.
“Opening the door, we were nearly engulfed by flames. There it was: a panda burning along with all our toys,” she said in her memoir I am Giorgia: My Roots, My Principles.
“The fire consumed the entire apartment. We fled with nothing but a single bag hastily packed with pyjamas, two pairs of pants and a T-shirt.”
Ms Meloni was born in 1977 after her then 23-year-old mother made a last-minute decision not to have an abortion.
Soon after she was delivered, her father, an accountant from Rome, left the family. He set sail for the Canary Islands and she stayed in touch with him until deciding to never see him again at age 11.
In the memoir, she also revealed that her determination to succeed despite feelings of inadequacy stems from the lack of her father’s love.
She said she grew up convinced she didn’t deserve anything due to her father’s abandonment at a young age.
But she said the “pain of not being loved enough” spurred her on to “relentlessly prove otherwise” in male-dominated environments.
“His lack of love is what scarred me,” the mother-of-one said. “What hurt the most was his indifference to us. He made it clear we were not his priority when it came to love.”
The Italian leader admitted the “wound” of her father’s abandonment meant she grappled with a daily “fear of inadequacy” and “falling short”.
“This fear fuels my attention to detail, my stubbornness, my commitment, my willingness to make sacrifices,” she said.
“Competing with men, seeking their approval, the friendship and the esteem of my colleagues, all of it is the result of that wound.
“The constant need to meet high standards, especially in male-dominated environments, along with my fear of disappointing those who believe in me, probably stems from the lack of my father’s love.”
Ms Meloni, the first female Italian PM, has led Italy since 2022 and is often at summits alongside some of the world’s most powerful men like JD Vance, Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
She was recently seen theatrically rolling her eyes at a G7 summit in Alberta, Canada, while speaking with the French president in June.
Ms Meloni was seen gazing deeply into Mr Musk’s eyes in 2024, before the world’s richest man claimed she was “even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside”.
And in May, Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama theatrically dropped to his knees as he welcomed Ms Meloni to Tirana on a red carpet for an EU summit.
She admitted to being an “introverted” child who wore a “sullen expression” – something she said has followed her into adulthood.
“To anyone who mocks my brazen and grumpy demeanour, I can show them a pre-school photo where I look exactly the same,” she said.
I am Giorgia: My Roots, My Principles will be published by Skyshore Publishing on 14 August.
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