An influencer who rose to fame for his hilarious videos with his grandmother has heartbreakingly announced her passing.
Mario De Lillo shared the sad news with his 628,000 Instagram followers on Sunday (15 Mar).
“Out of all the videos I made with my grandmother, we never filmed one where I asked her how she’d like me to talk about her, or what she’d want me to say after she was gone,” he wrote.
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“‘Nothing.’ That’s what she would’ve said – or she’d have just stayed silent. A full, heavy silence, very different from the one I feel now.”
Mario – from Ostia, Italy – had also amassed 1m TikTok followers with his comedic clips starring him and his beloved nan, Malena.
She became a cult favourite for the way she rolled her eyes, muttered under her breath, or responded bluntly to her grandson’s antics.
Aged 91 at the time of her passing, Malena’s dry humour and sarcastic remarks were a hallmark of the videos, as reported by Need To Know.
She could be seen looking stone-faced or mildly exasperated as Mario interrupted her while dressed as a ghost or Father Christmas in the kitchen.
In one clip, he introduced his second-born to her “for the first time,” to which Malena muttered: “You put him back in the crib, okay.”
“No, Malè, I just wanted to bring him over here for a sec… I wanted to show him to you, see if maybe you wanted to hold him for a moment.”
“No, no, I don’t want to hold anyone.”
“What do you think? Who does he look like?”
“How should I know?”
Twenty years ago, Mario, now 40, enrolled in a theatre academy and began attending auditions and taking on small film roles.
“Then one day I discovered the phone and social media, and that’s when my life changed,” he told local media in 2021.
“Since I feel like I’m someone who has things to say, even without a script, I told myself, ‘I’ve got stories to tell. Everything that happens in my life is material.’”
Malena featured in his very first video, filmed in the kitchen as she struggled to zip up her jacket.
Mario called the style of his videos “Arte Povera”.
“Arte Povera is an artistic concept,” he explained. “The idea is art first, and then ‘poor’. ‘Poor’ means redemption – starting from the bottom and trying to rise up, while staying true to what made you who you are.”
In his tribute, Mario reflected: “When I think of my grandmother, I think of the countless times she came to pick me up from school, the happiness I felt when my mum told me she’d be coming to live with us for a while, even though my dad wasn’t exactly thrilled about it…
“The long summer afternoons we spent together in the garden, because I wanted a tan but was too shy to go to the beach.
“And then this incredible public chapter, which I’m really proud of, because it allowed me to share the bond we had – her presence, her honesty.
“Bye, Malè – said in the same tone I used every time I said goodbye when leaving your house.”
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