Allegra Gucci: “My long journey”

Here is an extract from the article published in number 11 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until March 14, 2022

All happy families look alike. The Gucci family was unhappy in his way. Warning: this is not the beginning of Anna Karenina. This is just the beginning of a drama where the threads of fate of real characters are intertwined with those of Hollywood puppets. Welcome to the show that replaces pain with cabaret and truth with banality. On the one hand, there are the facts narrated in a new, shocking book that traces the murder of Maurizio Gucci, the prison of Patrizia Reggiani and the crowd of “hypocrites, flatterers, thieves, fraudulent advisers and sowers of discord”. On the other hand, there is the badly written detective story and worse acted than it is called House of Gucci, a blockbuster that brought the tragedy of glamor, jealousy and crime of the double G family under the eyes of the world. 27 years have passed since that morning of March 27, 1995, the day of the death of the Gucci heir. 27 years in which Allegra Gucci, second child of Maurizio and Patrizia, just 41 years old, remained silent witnessing the allegations, the lies, the sensationalist headlines, the TV interviews and the endless attacks without saying a word. Now, in the 200 pages of Game over (Edizioni Piemme), tells the whole truth.

Let’s start from that day, the day of his father’s death, shot by a hitman in the center of Milan by four gunshots. How did you find out about him missing?
“I’m in my room, I didn’t sleep well that night. My mother, Patrizia Reggiani, enters the room and hastily tells me that my father is dead. I, 14, crouch down on the ground and look at the window overlooking Piazza San Babila. Below, the yellow taxis and people keep moving. But I am still, as in a bubble, as if my life had stopped ».

When did you realize it was a crime?
“Soon after. I heard it on television. ‘

Your book wants to highlight the shadows of this history and these 27 years. The first people to enter the scene are five women: Paola Franchi, her father’s companion at that time; Giuseppina Auriemma, known by all as “the sorceress”; Loredana Canò, cellmate of her mother; Silvana Barbieri Reggiani, her grandmother; and finally Patrizia Reggiani, her mother. Let’s start with Paola Franchi, often described by the newspapers as the victim of this affair.
«On the night of that March 27, a few hours after my father’s death, Paola Franchi organizes a move from the apartment in Corso Venezia where she lived with him, about 1,000 square meters. The same happens with the house in St. Moritz in the following days ».

In the film, on the contrary, it is told of her mother arriving at the house in Corso Venezia to send her away …
“Lies. My mother never went there. That same day, however, my sister Alessandra goes to her address to ask about her father: she wanted to breathe her smell again, hug him the last time. Franchi doesn’t show up, instead of him the person who opens the door hastily gives my sister a dad’s white sweater left on an armchair. Franchi will leave the house in July, many months later. It’s all in the records. “

There are two other issues relating to Franchi and reported in the book: a document named “Cohabitation Agreement” and the story of the cause to obtain her custody because she was a minor …
“The first document is important for two reasons. First: it is the evidence of the great love between my father and my mother, a beautiful story that lasted 13 years and interrupted by the separation in 1985. Their marriage did not end because of Franchi as often reported in the newspapers: the estrangement dates back at least 7 years before their relationship. Second: the cohabitation convention attests my father’s will not to want to get married anymore. He repeated it to everyone: he would never create a family again because his family was us, my sister and I ».

And the lawsuit for his custody?
«Franchi was not my father’s wife, she was not my mother nor was she a friend. When my mother was found guilty in 1998, Franchi went to the Juvenile Court indicating that my assets and I were “in disarray” and that she was offering to protect me and my interests. Another slap. I, the daughter of a murdered father and an imprisoned mother, had to suffer this too. And despite the fact that the Swiss authority had already appointed a legal guardian, so I certainly couldn’t be in disarray, at that moment I also had to think about defending myself, going before a judge to explain what I felt, what was mine life, to justify myself to avoid another attack. Paola Franchi has never given us respite. And she continued. I don’t understand how you can throw yourself at a little girl like that. Or maybe I know: she was only looking for a reward because her actions go against her her intentions of care and love professed ».

(Continued, on issue 11 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until March 14, 2022)

Chronicle of a saga

October 28, 1972 – Patrizia Reggiani marries Maurizio Gucci in the church of San Sepolcro in Milan.

June 28, 1976 – The eldest daughter Alessandra Gucci is born.

January 27, 1981 – The second child Allegra Gucci is born.

March 22, 1985 – Maurizio Gucci leaves Patrizia Reggiani.

May 6, 1992 – Maurizio and Patrizia divorced in Switzerland.

May 27, 1992 – Patrizia is operated on for a brain tumor. Her daughter Allegra thinks that the surgery has conditioned her behavior.

1993 – Maurizio Gucci begins a relationship with Paola Franchi.

14 October 1994 – Maurizio and Patrizia also divorced in Italy.

March 27, 1995 – Maurizio Gucci, 46, is killed in Milan in the entrance to the building in via Palestro 20 where he is located
his office.