Meta has been active in politics since the dying days of the communist regime in Albania, after which he and Kryemadhi were both part of the Socialist Party, now in power for the past 13 years under Edi Rama.
Married in 1998, in 2004 they founded the Socialist Movement for Integration, SMI, which played second fiddle to both the Socialists and its main rivals, the Democrats, in various governments until 2017.
Already a former prime minister, Meta became Albanian president that year, ceding the SMI leadership to his wife.
He took back control of the party in 2022 and ousted Kryemadhi from its ranks the following year. In 2024, while both were under investigation by special anti-graft prosecutors, Meta filed for divorce, which was finalised in 2025. They have three children together.
Meta is currently in detention, while Kryemadhi is no longer directly involved in politics. She is highly active on social media, however, where she regularly disputes the charges against her while sharing details from her personal life.
Blerjana Bino, a researcher at the Safe Journalists Network NGO, said that since Kryemadhi has lost all conventional political power, “visibility itself becomes a resource”.
“Entertainment television in Albania is not a politically neutral space,” Bino told BIRN. “It is one of the highest-reach environments available, and she has inserted herself into it at precisely the moment her legal exposure is at its peak.”
In that sense, she said, Kryemadhi is having some success.
“The courtroom remains the site of legal judgment, but the battle over meaning is already taking place in the media, and on current evidence, that battle is not going badly for her.”
Crossover of courts and showbusiness