Who is Niko, the son of Toto Cutugno

Sunday In paid homage to Toto Cutugnowho passed away in August 2023. His son was a guest in the studio Nico, together with Ivana Spagna, Lino Banfi and Alba Parietti. The most touching words were those of the son who spoke about himself and remembered his father, retracing his life and career, interviewed by Mara Venier.

“For me he was simply my dad, I saw him often, but I had no idea who he was, that he had a public life, that everyone knew him” said Nico Cutugno, the singer's only son, born in 1989. The 35-year-old was born from an extramarital relationship, but it was Cutugno's wife, Carla Galli, who pushed him to recognize his son. Toto Cutugno has said it several times: «Carla could have kicked me out of the house but instead she didn't. The first thing she told me was to recognize my son and give him my surname.”

Like his father he is passionate about music, but he preferred writing more than the stage. He also graduated in economics from Bocconi. He discovered his father's fame when he was 8 years old. «I was in the car with him and there was a song by him on the radio. He was driving, I was next to him, and there was something that didn't add up to me because the timbre of his voice was still very recognisable, so it seemed a bit strange because he had told me he was an engineer. However, it was a way to protect myself and to protect my privacy a little, and probably his too. Then I actually found out because at a certain point this article came out in the newspapers and so they had to tell me and in particular it was my great-grandfather who told me. He came to me and said: “Nico, your father is Toto Cutugno”, he explained to me that he was a singer. In a very direct way, without making many turns. Why didn't my mom tell me anything? I've always seen it as a form of protection. Then this relationship, the fact that I was born, is still something that was born from love. So there's nothing wrong.”

Above all, he remembers his father's constant presence. «I always felt a lot of love from him, but also extremely youthful, he was very easy going even with my friends wherever we went, he was always very joking but at the same time he cared that I had let's say those two or three rules of respect and education. So maybe yes, I remember that, where at times it may have been inappropriate, he got very heated. In the sense that he quickly became nervous and therefore gave you this form of severity in pills, which however were very clear.”

There is much of Cutugno's artistic and charismatic temperament in this. «He has always been a prima donna, I say this with affection, so he also had this mixture of jealousy towards me, which he himself couldn't explain in some way. I remember this episode in which I played with him in Tel Aviv in 2016 and, at the end of the evening, he told me that I was out of tune. He was extremely perfectionist, a total professional in the field of music. So he didn't give discounts to anyone, not even me. In fact, it was probably his way of preventing people from thinking that I was there as a form of recommendation in some way.”

«During my growth there was a period in which I suffered his personality because he was actually very charismatic, very present let's say. But I always had a relationship of dialogue with him, in the sense that we could talk, we dialogued and everything, but I find that the way he understood best was through music. I had found the key. He listened to my songs again and perhaps reworked some messages. Being a very shy person, perhaps initially he wasn't able to let go.”

Nico Cutugno also told how he dealt with the disease. «The first time they found a tumor on him I was eighteen. However, he lived it in his own way, in the sense that it was as if he had almost not accepted this thing and therefore, instead of making a course like everyone else, he never stopped and did not take time to heal and to stay calm. I remember that he did chemo during the week and then went to concerts on the weekend, even when he lost his hair he had invented this thing which was to take part in a drama. He somehow managed to fight with great courage, it was an enormous source of inspiration to see how he himself did not give in to this disease.”

The journey with the disease continued for the last 15 years of his life. «We have always had a significant age difference, dad was eighty and I'm thirty-four, so I've always had the thought of losing him. The thought of the aftermath was something that scared me greatly, because she has always been a central figure for me. And so this passage, this message if we want to call it that, was not so much verbal but it was the fact that we literally shared the last days of his life. With great tenderness, with great affection. Often in silence, and it was precisely the presence that cured a moment as dramatic as the end of a life.”