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Moses Mackay and his Italian girlfriend Chiara Principe in Portugal. Photo / @Moses_mackay
Kiwi singing sensation Moses Mackay has found love, five years after appearing on The Bachelor NZ.
Mackay, 36, of Sol3 Mio fame, tells Society Insider he met Italian gallery director Chiara Principe in Italy, where he has lived for the
past three years.
“I lived in Bologna and Milan, studying with my maestro, Opa Fernando,” Mackay says.
He met Principe amid the arts scene in Milan; she was working in the city’s prestigious M77 Gallery as managing director.
In 2024, M77 Gallery became the centre of the global fashion world when it was chosen as the exclusive venue for the Gucci Spring/Summer runway show.
“We’re very similar, quite under-the-radar people,” Mackay says.
“Chiara has been in the art world all her life and is super passionate about championing the artists she represents – presenting their works at international art fairs as well as advising people who want to add timeless pieces to their homes, businesses or collections.”
“She’s already been to New Zealand, and my family loves her,” Mackay says. “We try to come home to NZ once a year if we can.”
Mackay and his cousins Pene and Amitai Pati formed the chart-topping operatic trio Sol3 Mio in 2012. Their last album was released in 2021.
Mackay, a baritone, mixed up his singing stardom with gigs on radio shows and reality TV, starring in Celebrity Treasure Island in 2019 and as The Bachelor in 2021, where he had a short relationship with the winner of the final rose, Annie Theis.
The couple tried long-distance, with Mackay visiting Theis and meeting her family in Wānaka, before things fizzled out.
“We quickly realised that maybe we weren’t really right for each other,” Theis told the Herald in 2021.
“If I’m truthful, I think the filming was quite quick, and I don’t think the right person was quite there for Moses.
“I want nothing more than for him to find his magical one person, but I just don’t think the show was, unfortunately, the place that he was going to find that person.”
Mackay left for Italy after his original solo album Grace debuted at No 1 in New Zealand, and he received the $50,000 Dame Malvina Major Award in 2023.
Recently, Mackay and Principe have been travelling back and forth between Italy and Portugal.
“Chiara has recently been appointed the new director of In The Pink, a fine art photography gallery based in Portugal,” Mackay says.
The gallery, housed over three floors of a pink palacete in the southern city of Loulé, shows work by some of the world’s most collected photographers.
Loulé is in the Algarve region, celebrated for its golden limestone cliffs, dramatic sea caves, hidden coves and vibrant beach towns, and the couple have been enjoying the sights.
One of their favourite destinations has been the Algar de Benagil, a famous domed sea cave with a circular skylight that illuminates an internal sandy beach.
Though Mackay says most of his life is in Europe now, he loves any chance to come home for concerts or to see friends and family.
In 2024, he returned to New Zealand for NZ Opera’s production of Rossini’s comic opera Le comte Ory, where he played Raimbaud.
“I’m loving singing Verdi these days, and I am excited about some projects back home in 2027.”
Mackay was home in March for the premiere of Tenor: My Name is Pati, where he caught up with his former Sol3 Mio bandmate Pene Pati.
The documentary is the story of Pati and his brother Amitai’s journey from Samoa to platinum-selling success in the trio Sol3 Mio.
“It’s an amazing documentary, and I urge anyone to go and see it,” Mackay says.
He says his performance highs in Italy have been roles in L’elisir d’amore, Turandot and Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Brahms Requiem in Prague, as well as a high-profile Disney project.
“Singing on the Moana soundtrack and working with Alex Lacamoire and Lin-Manuel Miranda was pretty epic.”
He says when the live-action movie came out in Italy this year, he found it a little crazy that the Disney film was renamed Oceania there, as the name Moana is synonymous with late Italian adult film star and TV personality Moana Pozzi.
As well as being the place he’s found love, Italy has inspired Mackay in other ways. He has been writing a magical realism novel, Cucina Bella, set on a small Italian island and accompanied by an original orchestral soundtrack.
“The story had been with me for years, but I started properly writing it in Bologna,” Mackay says.
“I then travelled to the island of Procida, off the coast of Naples, where I wrote the main body of it.”
Procida went on to become the magical island in the book, Aprosia.
He says the music and the story grew together.
“For some chapters I already had music in mind, and other times pieces came while I was writing.”
Mackay collaborated with Italian artists and orchestrators, and says his friend Paul Rozario-Falcone, a published writer, advised and oversaw the lengthy process.
Over the past few months, Mackay has been teasing the book with an eight-episode Sunday series on Instagram to introduce its world, and some of the music has already been performed live with orchestra and choir.
“The manuscript is now in the hands of several literary agents, and the plan is to find the right publisher.
“I’d love to debut the full orchestral song cycle in New Zealand, but we’ll see – it pretty much has a life of its own at this stage.”
Party People of the Week
Coca-Cola Field Club
The new Coca-Cola Field Club at Eden Park launched recently ahead of the Black Caps v India T20. Eden Park CEO Nick Sautner celebrated the opening with a select group of celebrities, media and content creators.
Located beside the field underneath the stadium’s Lower West Stand, the $10 million redevelopment combines a central bar, lounge seating, shared tables and entertainment, all with an immersive field-level view of the cricket action.
Guests enjoyed truffle and parmesan fries, heirloom tomato salad with torn burrata and basil oil, chicken katsu sliders, Szechuan-spiced squid with lemon aioli, and pulled lamb flatbread, with a selection of beverages on offer throughout the evening and music from DJ Sean Hill.
Among those spotted were actress Ria Vandervis, influencer Erin Simpson, comedian Guy Montgomery, NZ Herald senior sports journalist Christopher Reive, 1News sports reporters Bonnie Jansen and Zion Dayal, Coast’s Lorna Riley, The Breeze’s Mike Puru, podcast host/sexologist Morgan Penn, and content creators Mike and Joelle Legg, Hannah Koumakis, Money and Abbey Singh, and Kate Manihera.
Ricardo Simich has been with the Herald since 2008 where he contributed to The Business Insider. In 2012 he took over Spy at the Herald on Sunday, which has since evolved into Society Insider. The weekly column gives a glimpse into the worlds of the rich and famous.
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