U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle’s team pressed for expensive champagne and comped meals in Athens, according to new reporting, even as senior officials publicly defended her work.
Guilfoyle’s aides sought two cases of high-priced champagne this spring and later bristled when a nearly $1,800 dinner bill was not wiped away, the Daily Beast reported, citing a Daily Mail account of her hospitality demands in Greece.
The claims add to a run of attention on the 57-year-old envoy’s lifestyle and circle since she took the Athens post, including a prior request for a $58,000 basketball court at the ambassador’s home and questions about a lobbyist at her meetings.
White House and State Department leaders still back her performance. Critics and anonymous officials describe a different picture: an entourage that expected free luxury and leaned on political clout.
A Greek source familiar with the matter told the Mail that whenever Guilfoyle is invited somewhere, she asks for a specific champagne that is “insanely expensive because it’s the only alcohol she drinks.”
Her team turned to Giannis Chorozoglou, a Greek hospitality figure who functioned as a de facto tour guide, and asked for handouts that included those two cases of pricey champagne.
When the order came back with only a discount, a member of her entourage objected.
"Are you serious? Just a discount? Are we paying for it? It was supposed to be free for the ambassador,"
That reaction sits at the center of the latest round of coverage. Public officials can accept ordinary hospitality in many settings. Demanding that luxury alcohol be comped is a different standard, and it invites exactly the headlines now following her.
Guilfoyle, the former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., split with him in 2024. Family changes in that orbit have stayed in the news, including when Trump described Don Jr. as changed after marriage in separate remarks about the next chapter of his son’s life.
On May 31, Guilfoyle attended a dinner at the Four Seasons Astir Palace along the Athens Riviera. The bill ran nearly $1,800.
Those at the table included her son Ronan, furniture designer and businessman Eric Villency, Ronan’s father and Guilfoyle’s second husband, and Christos Marafatsos, a 39-year-old lobbyist working for Aktor, a Greek infrastructure and energy group.
An aide insisted the meal should be on the house. The bill was eventually sent to the U.S. embassy. An official told the Mail that Guilfoyle ultimately paid.
Payment matters. So does the first impulse. Taxpayers and embassy staff should not be left sorting dinner disputes that began with an expectation of a free night out.
Political scandal cycles rarely stay neat, a pattern readers have seen in other long-running controversies, including how Gavin Newsom’s past affair returned to public view years after the fact.
Marafatsos’s role did not end with dinner. The Wall Street Journal reported this week on his presence at Guilfoyle’s meetings with foreign officials.
Robin Brooks, who served as National Security Council director for the Balkans and Central Europe under Joe Biden, flagged the risk in plain terms.
"Having a lobbyist in such meetings calls into question whether the meeting is advancing American interests or advancing some sort of private interest,"
That concern is not partisan theater. Diplomacy works when the U.S. government line is clear. A lobbyist for a Greek energy and infrastructure firm in the room muddies who the meeting is for.
A State Department source described Guilfoyle’s operation in Athens this way: she has a close team “basically running the show, smoothing the way for her, and making sure she has everything she needs.”
Smoothing logistics is normal. Blurring public duties with private access is not.
In April, news broke that Guilfoyle had requested a $58,000 basketball court at the ambassador’s home in Athens. In July she was seen at Psarou Beach on Mykonos with a drink. U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White was pictured there holding grapes in front of her.
A source close to the U.S. Embassy claimed she could intimidate embassy personnel, State Department higher-ups, and even Greek officials by leaning on her relationship to the president.
"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.’"
Those are serious allegations from an unnamed source. They are not findings from an inspector general. They do explain why routine hospitality fights become international copy when the envoy is a well-known Republican.
Trump has long dominated the media frame around anyone in his circle, whether the story is policy or a culture-war image fight, as when he shared an altered image of the Obamas with Air Force One and set off another round of coverage.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back hard in comments to the Mail. He called Guilfoyle an “incredibly effective advocate” for Trump’s agenda “in Greece and across Europe.”
Rubio added that he and the president “greatly value the Ambassador’s pivotal work and leadership in the region.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Guilfoyle has done an “incredible job,” and that claims to the contrary are “trash.”
The Daily Beast said it contacted the State Department and the White House for comment. The public line from leadership has been support, not distance.
An administration official offered a colder private appraisal to the Mail, saying Trump thought he could “ship her away to Greece and give her a plush title and then he could wipe his hands of it.” The same official said she is “creating negative headlines all the way from Europe” and that “there is no other U.S. ambassador that has received this much press in such a short period of time.”
On March 24, 2025, Trump kissed Guilfoyle during a Greek Independence Day celebration at the White House, an image that underscored her standing in the administration’s public orbit even as the Athens stories built.
Photo captions in the coverage also noted her appearances with Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and her choice of low-cut tops while meeting Greek Orthodox clergy. Style choices are not ethics violations. Champagne demands and lobbyist seating are the substance worth weighing.
Readers fed a steady diet of selective outrage know the drill from other media cycles, including glossy distractions like the Obama Presidential Center’s “Tan Suit Day” promotions while older governance fights still linger in the record.
Here is the hard floor of what the reporting shows. Guilfoyle’s team sought expensive champagne and expected it free. An entourage member complained out loud when that did not happen. A May 31 dinner produced a nearly $1,800 bill, a push to comp it, a referral to the embassy, and an official assurance she paid. A lobbyist for a Greek firm attended that dinner and, per the Journal’s account, appeared in meetings with foreign officials. A $58,000 basketball court request at the residence already made news in April.
Here is what the same package does not show. No criminal charge. No formal State Department ethics ruling in the cited material. No full accounting of whether any champagne was ultimately provided free. No complete list of the foreign meetings Marafatsos joined.
Anonymous sources describe fear of a presidential phone call. Named senior officials describe an envoy getting results for the administration in Europe. Both cannot be ignored if the standard is accountability rather than pile-on.
Ambassadors live partly in public. They entertain, travel, and open doors. They do not get to revise the check as a birthright. When aides say luxury drinks were “supposed to be free for the ambassador,” they hand opponents a clean quote and force allies into cleanup duty.
Republican names draw a louder press pack than obscure career envoys. That double standard is real. It does not make the underlying conduct smart.
If the job is to advance American interests in Greece, the meetings should look like American interests, not like a VIP list with a lobbyist in tow and a comp tab on the side.