Tiziana Cantone (Instagram/tizianacantonereal)
31-year-old Tiziana Cantone was found dead Tuesday after hanging herself following a sex tape she was featured in that went viral in 2015.
Cantone was reportedly depressed for months after the video surfaced, and this wasn’t the first time she tried killing herself.
The bombshell changed her name and even quit her job after the video was leaked.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. She Hung Herself After a Sex Tape She Was in Went Viral
(Instagram/tizianacantonereal)
Cantone had been suffering from months of notoriety following a sex tape she was in that went viral, BBC reported.
She sent the tape of her having sex with a different man to an ex-boyfriend after they broke up, Daily Mail reported. The ex then allegedly uploaded the video online out of revenge.
La Repubblica said Cantone may have also sent several videos to five friends whom she trusted.
The video showed Cantone performing a sex act on a man. “Are you making a video? Bravo,” she could be heard telling the man. The phrase was then used by people on Youtube “who made parodies of the footage and shared them online,” according to the Mirror.
Cantone had won a “right to be forgotten” ruling in Italian courts, the publication said, but was ordered to pay court costs for the ordeal.
The court forced Facebook to take down some of the abusive posts, Cosmopolitan reported.
After the ruling, the video had already been copied and republished thousands of times to porn sites and social media.
Cantone took her own life by apparently hanging herself on September 12.
2. She Had Been Depressed for Months, Her Mother Said
(Instagram/tizianacantonereal)
Friends and family said that Cantone had been “depressed for months and on the brink of suicide for months prior to her death,” according to the Daily Mail.
Cantone’s mother, Maria Teresa described her deceased daughter as depressed and said she sometimes turned to alcohol. “She was hurting and at times took refuge in alcohol. But she was always a healthy and normal girl,” Teresa told investigators, La Reppublica newspaper reported.
3. She Attempted Suicide Twice in the Past, According to Her Mother
(Instagram/tizianacantonereal)
Cantone tried unsuccessfully to kill herself twice before she hung herself to death, her mother told La Reppublica.
“She was suffering from everything she saw and heard and in particular from the outcome of the legal proceedings because she believed justice had not been done,” Catone’s mother told the newspaper.
According to Suicide.org, “over one million people die by suicide worldwide each year, and the global suicide rate is 16 per 100,000 population. It also said “Global suicide rates have increased 60% in the past 45 years.”
4. She changed Her Name & Quit Her Job After the Sex Tape Circulated
(Instagram/tizianacantonereal)
After the sex tape she starred in went viral, Cantone felt forced to change her name, the Daily Mail said. She was reportedly granted a new legal name by a court so that she could try to live out a normal life.
Author Roberto Saviano said Italy has a “morbid” relationship with sex and the rejection she felt from the public after the tape went viral stemmed from that fact.
“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,” Saviano said on Twitter.
“It’s mainly a cultural battle — also a social and political battle,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told reporters. “Our commitment is try to do everything we can. … Violence against women is not an ineradicable phenomenon.”
5. She Was Bullied Relentlessly Following the Tape’s Release
(Instagram/tizianacantonereal)
Once the sex tape went viral, Cantone was reportedly bombarded with ridicule on social media and often recognized on the street by those who saw the video.
Teresa Petrosino, a friend, told the Corriere della Sera that Ms Catone was “destroyed” by the abuse.
Prosecutors in Cantone’s home city of Naples opened an investigation into her death, and four people are under investigation over alleged defamation of the woman, according to CNN.
“I wonder how anyone can be so fierce, how to rage against a girl who has not done anything wrong,” Teresa Petrosino told Corriere della Sera.
*This article will be updated as information becomes available.
