Singer Elisa discloses childhood sexual abuse in Corriere della Sera interview

The disclosure

Italian singer Elisa Toffoli, 48, known simply as Elisa, told Corriere della Sera that she was sexually abused when she was eight years old. Speaking in an interview with journalist Walter Veltroni, published on 3 November 2026, she said the experience had marked her for life and that it was something she could never forget. She described the abuse in only a few words and did not give further details.

“I was eight years old. I was not small enough to forget it, if that is ever possible.”

She said the disclosure was a way to help others who have lived through similar experiences. The account came as she prepared new work, with the short film Kintsugi already screened at the Festa del cinema di Roma and the album of the same name due on 27 November.

Years of silence and therapy

Toffoli said she waited many years before telling her mother, and that she only sought help from a therapist when she was 48. She began psychological therapy some time before the interview and said it has helped her a great deal. She described the process as a kind of clean-up, in which some burdens cannot be removed but can be placed differently.

“I am learning not to blame myself.”

She said she had long carried a sense of guilt, which she now links to the reason she chose to speak publicly. In the interview she also described how the abuse had shaken her trust in adults and made the world feel full of dangers. Her account of the grandfather who returned from Buchenwald appears in the coverage, but the sources do not tie it directly to the abuse.

Separation and the Kintsugi project

Toffoli also spoke about her separation from Andrea Rigonat, a musician and producer she married in 2015. She said the break-up took place in September 2025, and the sources differ on the length of the marriage: La Repubblica gives 18 years, while Il Messaggero and Open give 17. The couple have two children and continue to co-parent, and the privacy of the family is given as the reason they will not share more details.

Kintsugi is the title of both the album and the short film, and the word refers to the Japanese art of repairing broken pieces. Toffoli said the project came from a need to describe a personal crisis honestly, and that she had at one point considered withdrawing from public life. She said that once she stopped holding back, she regained energy and creative freedom.

A collective mission

Toffoli said she wants to be useful to the many girls, women and boys who have suffered sexual abuse. She tied this aim to the women's movement Una nessuna centomila, which she helped to found, and said her work and her words are the way she takes part in it.

“It is a collective mission, to free oneself from this absurd, harrowing sense of guilt for violence suffered.”

The album Kintsugi is scheduled for release on 27 November 2026. Toffoli said that writing has been a lifelong habit, and that she began keeping diaries in primary school and has kept them ever since.