Escort parties, laughing gas and a Serie A scandal: The new Theo Hernandez allegations explained

Last month, four people were arrested in Milan as part of a police investigation into a local events company that prosecutors believe was a front for a prostitution ring. More than 60 current and former Serie A players had their names appear in that probe as alleged clients, though Italian law does not criminalise the act of paying for sex and none of the players were placed under investigation or charged with any offence.

That was the context into which Fabrizio Corona, one of Italy's most controversial media personalities, dropped his latest set of claims.

They are more specific, more personal, and considerably more damaging in their detail.

Corona, a former paparazzi turned media personality who has served prison time for extortion and has a long history of releasing compromising material about Italian public figures, published allegations on his platform specifically naming Theo Hernandez as the alleged organiser of a series of private parties involving escort services and several AC Milan players.

According to Corona's claims, substantiated by a couple of videos, Hernandez acted as the group's coordinator, contacting people to arrange escort services, and was considered the de facto leader of the gathering. The allegations further claim he purchased a van specifically used as transport for these occasions.

Nitrous oxide, popularly known as laughing gas, was reportedly consumed at some of the parties. Most significantly, some of the events allegedly took place the night before AC Milan matches.

The other players Corona named as allegedly linked to the parties include Hakan Calhanoglu, Brahim Diaz, Samu Castillejo, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sandro Tonali, Rafael Leao and, on one occasion, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. None of these individuals have been placed under investigation in connection with these specific allegations and none has been charged.

AC Milan, Hernandez and the other players named have not commented publicly on the escort party claims at the time of writing. These are allegations made by a source with a documented history of both exposing genuine scandals and of being convicted for extortion in connection with compromising material.

When police arrested four people connected to the Milan events company, Italian newspapers, including Tuttosport and Il Giornale, published lists of players whose names had appeared in the investigation files. Among those named across various reports were Rafael Leao, Achraf Hakimi, Milan Skriniar, Alessandro Bastoni, Carlos Augusto and Dusan Vlahovic, among others.

Again, none of these players were under investigation for criminal conduct. The arrests targeted the alleged organisers of the prostitution ring, not the persons who appear to have attended the events. The distinction matters legally, but it doesn't make the reputational fallout any less serious for a league that has spent years trying to rebuild its image following betting scandals, crowd violence, and the match-fixing case that stripped Juventus of their title in 2006.

Sandro Tonali's name on this latest list carries specific weight given the context. The midfielder, then at Newcastle, was handed an eight-month ban from all football activity in October 2023 after admitting to betting on matches, including those involving his own teams.

It was one of the most damaging individual sanctions applied to an Italian player in years. He served the ban, returned to football, and his inclusion among the players allegedly linked to Corona's new claims puts him in an uncomfortable position all over again, even with the important caveat that no criminal allegation is attached to attending a private party.

The story is running in Italy's sports press with varying degrees of seriousness, with some outlets treating Corona's claims as breaking news and others putting them in the context of his history and waiting for corroboration from official sources. That divide in coverage is a genuine editorial question: how much weight do you give a source who has been right before and convicted of extortion involving similar material?

For AC Milan specifically, this is not the first time Hernandez's off-field life has made headlines in ways that complicate the club's image. In late 2024, Corona accused Hernandez of assaulting two women at a private club in Milan and released video footage to support the claim. The restaurant named in connection with that incident denied the allegations. Hernandez did not comment publicly.

In a separate case that concluded in January 2025, Luisa Kremleva, a Russian-born model was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended, after admitting to falsely accusing Hernandez of rape in a 2017 incident in Marbella. He was cleared. The pattern, across several separate allegations, is of a player whose private life generates regular controversy in Italian media circles, with outcomes that have ranged from complete exoneration to unresolved claims.

The broader question these allegations raise for Italian football is structural. A prostitution ring investigation naming 60-plus players, followed within weeks by specific escort party allegations involving some of the league's biggest names, is the kind of story that reaches beyond the sports pages and into general news coverage in a way that a fixture list or transfer window simply does not.