5Star Movement founder Beppe Grillo (center) leaves the Interior Ministry in Rome on January 19, 2018 | Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images Beppe Grillo’s 5Star farewell Comedian removes all mention of the party and its backers from his blog.

MILAN — Beppe Grillo looks to have left the 5Star Movement behind.

The comedian who founded the populist group, which has become one of the major forces in Italian politics, on Tuesday launched a revamped version of his blog with all references to the 5Stars removed. All that remains is one link to the group's new website.

Less obviously, but just as important, is that the blog is no longer overseen by Casaleggio Associati, the media firm that has run the blog since its early days and has played a crucial role in the rise of the 5Stars since the movement was launched in 2009.

By distancing his blog from the 5Stars and Casaleggio, Grillo is distancing himself from the political party of his own creation, weeks ahead of an election in which it could come first.

5Star activists are called grillini (Grillo’s guys) for good reason. The movement stemmed directly from Grillo’s blog and its readers. Even after it evolved into a full-fledged political party, the blog continued to serve as its platform. Grillo didn't play a hands-on role in the blog — that was the work of Casaleggio Associati, which was both publisher and content provider. (The firm also runs Rousseau, the portal through which the 5Star Movement holds its online votes on all party issues.)

Many analysts believe the company is the engine behind the movement and its boss, Davide Casaleggio, is one of the party's de facto leaders.

In the past few months the 69-year-old Grillo has avoided appearances at the party’s events and earlier this month said he would take his blog in a different direction. That's now happened.

That could be because he has a new comedy show, which he's currently touring across the country. But a potentially bitter split with the 5Stars is also a possibility. In the first blog post since the relaunch, there was no mention of the movement or of Casaleggio Associati, which is highly unusual. Journalist Pietro Salvatori called it a “damnatio memoriae" (damnation of memory).

Neither Grillo nor the Casaleggio Associati responded to a request for comment.

If Grillo has left the fold, it won't make too much of a difference to the running of the party.

“The M5S has always been a thing of Casaleggio’s and of his firm’s. Grillo served as a megaphone of Casaleggio’s own experiment," said Jacopo Iacoboni, author of a recent book on the 5Star Movement called "L’Esperimento" ("The Experiment").

Twin founders

The 5Star Movement was founded in 2009 by Grillo and the late Gianroberto Casaleggio, father of Davide.

It was Casaleggio Sr. who convinced Grillo to start a blog back in 2005, said a former company employee, Marco Canestrari.

Soon after the blog started, fans started groups called “Friends of Beppe Grillo” on the social network MeetUp. Throughout 2007 and 2008, Grillo's blog urged them to rally against corrupt politicians and the mainstream media, and organized two protests called "Vaffa Days” (F--k You Days).

“The real engine behind all this was Casaleggio,” said Canestrari.

Ahead of the 2009 election for the European Parliament, the blog successfully campaigned for Luigi De Magistris, a candidate of the anti-corruption party Italia dei Valori (the party was a client of Casaleggio's, which also runs a consultancy). De Magistris is now the mayor of Naples.

It was a “way of testing the effectiveness of the blog in an electoral setting,” Canestrari said.

Soon after, the 5Star Movement was born, although Grillo never ran for office — officially because a conviction for manslaughter conflicted with the party’s policy of not fielding candidates with a criminal record.

In the 2013 general election, the 5Stars got 25 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament and 23 percent of those in the Senate. In 2016, they won local elections in Rome and Turin. That same year, Gianroberto Casaleggio died and his son Davide took over the reins of the family firm. He also took over his father’s unofficial role inside the party.

As Italy heads toward a general election on March 4, the movement is ahead in the polls under the leadership of Luigi Di Maio, a 31-year-old former waiter and steward at Napoli’s football stadium. Although Di Maio's election was criticized for having no external oversight, Casaleggio Jr. and Di Maio are reportedly close.

With Grillo's apparent decision to step away from politics, the 5Stars appear more of a creature of the Casaleggio family than ever.