Kimberly Guilfoyle Sparks Backlash Over Outrageous Champagne Demand

Kimberly Guilfoyle has declined to remove an energy lobbyist from meetings held in her role as US ambassador to Greece, the Daily Mail can exclusively report.

The 57-year-old former Fox News host, who was previously engaged to Donald Trump Jr, has dismissed concerns about a potential conflict of interest.

“I need him,” Guilfoyle has said, according to roughly half a dozen insiders who spoke to the Daily Mail.

Sources in Athens say the controversy extends beyond Christos Marafatsos, 39, whose attendance at Guilfoyle’s official meetings was first reported by the Wall Street Journal last week.

Three insiders told the Daily Mail that Guilfoyle’s team sought complimentary items from a Greek hospitality fixer, including two cases of Champagne and a dinner costing almost €1,600 ($1,800). An embassy official said Guilfoyle paid for the meal.

At least two Greek news organizations published stories based on the Journal’s report before removing them soon afterward, as the claims attracted attention in Washington.

“Her team has forged excellent relationships with all the Greek media. They will call them up, and poof, there goes the bad press. Many people are afraid of getting on their bad side,” a Greek media insider said.

The controversy has reportedly frustrated Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is due to travel to Athens within days for talks with the Greek government, according to sources.

“Rubio is annoyed but quite frankly has too much on his plate to worry about the side quests of Kimberly Guilfoyle,” a State Department source said.

President Donald Trump selected Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece in December 2024, shortly after Don Jr was photographed out with Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, who is now his wife. The Senate confirmed Guilfoyle last September.

Before her appointment, sources cautioned the woman nicknamed “Margarita Girl” to conduct herself carefully, warning that a posting among Greece’s Aegean islands and famously long summers was not an invitation to live a party lifestyle.

In July, Guilfoyle was photographed drinking Champagne and eating grapes at Nammos, the jet-set venue on Mykonos’s Psarou Beach, with Bill White, Trump’s openly gay ambassador to Belgium. She traveled to Paris for Fashion Week the following day.

That same month, Trump returned directly to the United States from the NATO summit in Turkey rather than stopping in Greece, despite Guilfoyle having promised local officials a presidential visit.

The controversy surrounding Guilfoyle escalated Thursday when senior Democrats on the Senate and House foreign affairs committees called on Rubio to investigate her conduct, pointing to the Journal’s reporting.

“If these reports are accurate, Ambassador Guilfoyle is unfit to represent the United States abroad and should be removed from her position,” Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top House Foreign Affairs Democrat, wrote in a letter to Rubio.

An embassy official said Guilfoyle “continues to follow all State Department ethical guidelines.”

Marafatsos is a registered lobbyist for Aktor Group, a major Greek infrastructure and construction company that has expanded into natural gas distribution and renewable energy.

Guilfoyle has “worked with companies across the energy sector” rather than representing a single company, her lawyer, Jesse Binnall, told the Journal.

Aktor paid Marafatsos $160,000 through June to build ties with the White House and the State and Energy departments, and Guilfoyle urged Balkan officials to do business with the company, the Journal reported. 

Lawyers for Aktor told the Journal that the company’s involvement began before it had any contact with the ambassador. 

Marafatsos has worked closely with Guilfoyle in a non-governmental capacity, bridging the gap between Athens and the Greek-American diaspora, a source familiar with their working arrangement said. He also chairs Greeks for Trump, founded in 2016. 

Guilfoyle and the White House have contested the Journal’s reporting and deny any impropriety. 

Keeping Marafatsos in the room has left her embassy firefighting on two continents. 

Staff are racing to set up urgent meetings with senior Greek officials in Athens and Washington to limit the fallout, some of them face-to-face with Guilfoyle herself, multiple sources said.

Guilfoyle insists her tight-knit inner circle, which includes her omnipresent personal stylist, Fancy James, remains vital to her ambassadorial mission, insiders said.

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‘She has a close team of people that are basically running the show, smoothing the way for her, and making sure she has everything she needs,’ the same State Department source added.

Giannis Chorozoglou, a Greek ‘hospitality guru,’ has acted as the team’s personal guide, three insiders close to Guilfoyle told the Daily Mail.

Guilfoyle’s team asked him this spring to order two cases of Champagne for the ambassador.

‘Are you serious? Just a discount? Are we paying for it? It was supposed to be free for the ambassador,’ a member of her team fired back when Chorozoglou secured only a discount.

‘Whenever she is invited somewhere she asks for a specific Champagne that is insanely expensive because it’s the only alcohol she drinks,’ a Greek source familiar with her outings said.

Guilfoyle dined at Matsuhisa at the Four Seasons Astir Palace in Vouliagmeni, a wealthy seaside enclave south of Athens, on May 31. She was joined by her son Ronan and his father, businessman and furniture designer Eric Villency.

One of her aides called Chorozoglou to complain when the bill came to €1,586, insisting the meal was supposed to be complimentary and the ambassador would not be paying. 

The bill was eventually sent straight to the embassy, sources familiar with the exchange said.

Soliciting gifts of that kind goes well beyond a question of taste and would breach federal law and rules designed to shield serving ambassadors from accusations of corruption, three current and former diplomats told the Daily Mail.

Under federal ethics regulations, government employees ‘shall not, directly or indirectly, solicit or accept a gift’ that is given because of their official position.

SKAI and Money Review, the two outlets that pulled their versions of the Wall Street Journal story, are both owned by shipping magnate Giannis Alafouzos.

‘In Greece, most of these stories have been censored, links have been removed and pretty much anything critical of the Ambassador is taken down,’ a source in Greek media told the Daily Mail.

Rubio’s talks in Athens next week will cover defense cooperation, migration, counterterrorism, airport narcotics controls, Middle East stability and Greek-Turkish relations.

Career diplomats are frustrated with Guilfoyle but feel powerless to rein her in, sources said. 

‘President Trump thought he could ship her away to Greece and give her a plush title and then he could wipe his hands of it,’ an administration official said.

‘But she is creating negative headlines all the way from Europe, and it has infiltrated American media because she is such a big Republican name. Frankly, there is no other US ambassador that has received this much press in such a short period of time.’

Embassy staff and foreign diplomats tread carefully around Guilfoyle, who makes no secret of her direct line to the Oval Office, sources said. 

‘She is able to intimidate Athens Embassy personnel, State Department higher-ups and even Greek and regional government officials using the Trump card,’ a source close to the US Embassy in Athens said.

‘She has Trump’s phone number on her cellphone and can wield that like a weapon imperiously: “Don’t get in my way or I can call the President of the United States.”‘

The Daily Mail has contacted Chorozoglou, SKAI and Money Review for comment. 

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers insists Guilfoyle has done an ‘incredible job’ in her role and suggestions otherwise are ‘trash.’

Rubio said Guilfoyle has been an ‘incredibly effective advocate’ for the president’s agenda ‘in Greece and across Europe.’ 

‘President Trump and I greatly value the Ambassador’s pivotal work and leadership in the region,’ Rubio said in a statement. 

Marafatsos said in a statement: ‘I am grateful for the opportunity to draw on my business experience and leadership in the Greek American community.’