Ilona Staller (born 26 November 1951), known by her stage name Cicciolina, is a Hungarian-Italian former porn star, politician, and singer. Staller gained fame in the early 1970s through her radio show Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? and became widely recognized by her stage name Cicciolina. She appeared in numerous films and gained notoriety for being the first to bare her breasts on live Italian television in 1978. 

Staller ventured into politics and was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987, campaigning on a libertarian platform. Throughout her career, she made provocative offers, such as offering to have sex with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in exchange for peace. Staller also had a brief marriage to American artist Jeff Koons, with whom she had a son. Despite her controversial career, she has left a lasting impact on popular culture and continues to be remembered for her contributions in the entertainment industry.

Ilona was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, László Staller, left the family when she was young. She was raised by her mother, who was a midwife, and her stepfather, who was an official in the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior.

In 1964, at age 12, she began working as a model for the Hungarian news agency, M.T.I. In her memoirs and in a 1999 TV interview, she claimed that she had provided the Hungarian authorities with information on American diplomats staying at a Budapest luxury hotel where she worked as a maid in the 1960s. By the age of 25, and during her hotel work, she met an older Italian national named Salvatore Martini whom she later married in 1968.

Naturalized through marriage and settled in Italy, Staller met pornographer Riccardo Schicchi in the early 1970s. Starting in 1973, she gained fame with her radio show called Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? on Radio Luna. For that program, she adopted the name Cicciolina, and she referred to her male fanbase, and later the male members of the Italian parliament, as cicciolini (“little tubby boys”). While she appeared in several films from 1970, she made her debut under her own name in 1975 with La liceale (also known as The Teasers), where she played alongside Gloria Guida as her lesbian classmate.

In 1978, during the RAI show C’era due Volte, Staller’s breasts were the first to be bared live on Italian TV. In 1983, she appeared in her first hardcore pornographic film, Telefono rosso (“Red Telephone”). Staller produced the film together with Schicchi’s company, Diva Futura. Her memoirs were published as Confessioni erotiche di Cicciolina (“Erotic confessions of Cicciolina”) by Olympia Press of Milan in 1987. That same year, she appeared in Carne bollente [it], titled The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress in the United States, co-starring John Holmes. The film caused controversy when it was later revealed that Holmes had tested positive for HIV prior to appearing in it. Staller has appeared nude in Playboy editions in several countries. Her first Playboy appearance was in Argentina in March 1988. She also appeared in the U.S. edition in September 1990, and in Hungary (June 2005), Serbia (July 2005), and Mexico (September 2005).

In 1987, invited by a local magazine, Staller visited the Portuguese Parliament and posed topless, leading to the suspension of the session and official complaints from members of CDS. Natália Correia was the only member seen talking to the Italian member of parliament. Staller appeared in the film Replikator (1996) and had a role in the Brazilian soap opera Xica da Silva [pt] as Princess Ludovica di Castelgandolfo di Genova, also in 1996.

In 2008, Staller participated as a contestant on the Argentine version of Strictly Come Dancing called Bailando por un Sueño. In 1979, Staller was presented as a female candidate to the Italian parliament by the Lista del Sole, Italy’s first Green party. In 1985, she switched to the Partito Radicale, campaigning on a libertarian platform against nuclear energy and NATO membership, as well as for human rights. She was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987, with approximately 20,000 votes. While in office, and before the outset of the Gulf War, she offered to have sex with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in return for peace in the region. She was not re-elected at the end of her term in 1991.

In 1991, Staller was among the founders of another Italian political movement, called Partito dell’Amore (“Party of Love”), which was spearheaded by friend and fellow porn star Moana Pozzi. In January 2002, she began exploring the possibility of campaigning in Hungary, her country of birth, to represent Budapest’s industrial Kőbánya district in the Hungarian parliament. However, she failed to collect enough petition signatures for a non-partisan candidacy. In the same year, she ran in local elections in Monza, Italy, promising to convert a prominent building into a gambling casino, but she attracted few votes.