Lucio Presta, last April 10, through a tweet, he promised that he would reveal the truth about end of the professional relationship with Amadeus. Almost three weeks later, the agent kept his word, giving an incendiary interview to Il Giornale in which he explained his version of events and attacked the host on multiple fronts.
Lucio Presta against Amadeus: the phrase about ingratitude and the background on the rules of the host’s first Sanremo
Presta began by recalling a chat he had with Giulio Andreotti during which he learned several things: “The first is that there is a full-blown illness called Beneficiary’s Rancorous Syndrome. The second is that gratitude is the feeling of the day before and the third is that if you do good to someone you will have many angry people and a ungrateful”
When asked if by any chance he had intended to refer to Amadeus, he didn’t bat an eyelid and confirmed. “I don’t want to talk about the pre-2020 Sebastiani because it has nothing to do with that of the 2020-2023 period,” he said, mentioning the three-year period of the first Festivals conducted by ‘Ama’.
“The first Sanremo Festival done together was a masterpiece of complicity – claimed the agent -. Amadeus didn’t even know where he could start formulating a regulation and what follows from it, what were the rights and duties of the Artistic Director of the Festival. I could call Claudio Fasulo (then Rai Structure Manager) who lived those days with me to testify. With Amadeus and his family I spent a few days in La Coruna, Spain, to write the entire regulation which he then brought to Rai as his work”.
Presta underlined that he was happy that the Rai leaders were satisfied to know “that Amadeus was prepared and above all that they had entrusted the Festival into the right hands”. It was the time when the host and the agent worked together on everything. By mutual agreement they chose, again according to Presta’s version, the authorial team, the direction, the set designers, the director of photography, the choreographer, the co-hosts etc…
Maybe you might be interested
Amadeus signs the contract with Discovery for 4 years, which programs will it host on the Nine after leaving Rai
The manager also in this situation showed that he had a poisonous tooth: “The choice of the women who would support him was born during the repeated dinners that Maria, my cook, prepared for him every evening at my house. Amadeus didn’t even know many of the women you saw on the Ariston stage (Rula Jebreal for example). I met them alone on Ama’s behalf, only then did I organize a dinner or lunch, regularly offered and supervised by myself, to introduce them to them. Some he met for the first time directly during the Saremo photo shoots.”
The hiring of Georgina Rodriguez
Presta then narrated the details to bring Georgina Rodriguez at the Ariston theater: “For the wife of Cristiano Ronaldo, just to have her, I organized a rehearsal room in Turin at my expense and sent the choreographer Franco Miseria to prepare the tango that she brought to the stage. I thus saved her from moving from Turin and away from Cristiano and the children. This earned me the respect of Ronaldo who was a free guest at the Festival.”
The first four Amadeus Festivals were therefore organized in close contact with Presta. And there were no problems of any kind with the conductor. “All in perfect harmony with Amedeo. We tried to fulfill every wish of his,” the agent highlighted. And again: “This was the climate that could be felt in the four Festivals held together. I tell you more, the trust was such that with Gina Ciliaits excellent press office, to relieve ‘Ama’ from the effort of hosting, we asked journalists to send written interview questions”.
Maybe you might be interested
The official Rai note on Amadeus’ farewell: clarifications from Viale Mazzini on the economic and editorial terms
Presta also claimed that he was the one answering the questions himself, after showing the texts to Amadeus. “As if he had written them – he assured -. The same was true for the promos, the ads that we shot with my phone and brought to Tg1, after also creating the graphics to reveal the names of the guests that we kept secret from everyone. I could continue like this in the story of all four Festivals without anyone being able to deny what I am saying.”
The breakup and professional farewell
It seemed like a perfect collaboration. Then something broke. What? “Before arriving at the fifth Festival, this year’s, in September, Amadeus and I did the third edition of Arena Suzuki ’60-2000, produced by the company Rainbow three”. The company was owned by Presta himself, but with the entry into force of the circular drawn up by the Supervisory Commission which prevents the manager from being a producer of the artist he represents, the agent had to sell the shares to third parties. However, he continued to carry out his work as a manager.
So? “Once the Arena Suzuki program was finished, we began work on the fifth Festival and then the first Rai meetings to define the promo campaign, the scenography and the claims. I started writing the rules of Sanremo area and I ratified it with the Municipality. Naturally all work done for free which was not my responsibility […]. I met Amadeus during the presentation of the Carabinieri calendar, we spoke to manage the various requests from the artists who wanted to be guests at the Festival and at that point I realized that something was wrong: ‘Ama’ always said no and declined every proposal”.
Presta claimed that Amadeus, quite unexpectedly, became cold towards him. Also during the interview with Il Giornale, the manager, regarding the presenter’s detachment, provided the following version:
“I realized that two of my close collaborators, welcomed for years not only into the company but also into my life, began a direct and secret relationship with Amadeus, speaking badly of myself and indicating professional paths that he could exploit, violating the secrets of the company they worked for. I’ll just tell you that I proposed one of the two to Antonella Clerici first and to ‘Ama’ afterwards, to make him the author of the programs The Voice and Sanremo. Instead, I proposed my close collaborator in the management of artists (practical management, not choices)”.
We arrive at face to face with Amadeus. Presta showed up together with his son as producer of Arena Suzuki. It was June 2023. During this meeting Ama made a request, namely “that he be paid by the company for the artistic direction and that he be recognized 100 percent of the ownership rights of the format. Request not collectable. Management which was already paid by Rai which had entered into an agreement with Arcobaleno Tre, owner of the format”.
“I – continued the manager – remind Amadeus that not only can it not boast those titles, but that the Rai Supervisory Commission it banned the possibility that artists can take money from the producers of the programs they host.” Presta left the meeting. His son remained to talk to the host: “He gave in to his insistence to the point of giving him a share as artistic director of the program and for having collaborated in the creation of the programme. I repeat: which is not true because if that had been the case he would have been obliged to give the format to Rai as per his contract with the company”.
Presta claimed that his son gave up on Amadeus “so as not to break the relationship that existed between me and Ama and for the great affection that my son has for him. She awarded him 90 thousand euros, in addition to those paid in previous years and which were also not due. Money that Ama regularly invoiced with the wording artistic direction, thus contravening the Rai Supervision circular. Furthermore, the program was purchased over the years by Rai as a purchase of filming rights, so the format is in fact Arcobaleno Tre’s”.
The big freeze before the 2024 Sanremo Festival
According to the agent, Amadeus would have behaved in this way because he was pushed by someone unspecified. “After having collected the invoice – continued Presta – mentioned above, the December 3, 2023, Ama asked for a new appointment, set for December 14th where he announced his intention to end the relationship after the end of the Festival. A few days after that meeting she wrote me a message saying that he preferred to immediately end our relationship because my presence would have made him uncomfortable at the Festival”.
The matter seems to have ended in a fiasco. Always Ready:
“I said and wrote that for any problem related to the contract I would be available, receiving his thanks. On that occasion he confirmed to me that he would honor the payment of my dues until the end of the contract (August 2024) except that in January he informed me, through his brother-in-law (his accountant), that he intended to pay only until December. For this reason, the legal office was given instructions to protect my interests.”
Following the manager’s version, Amadeus would have made another note to him: “I would have organized with the director of Rai day-time Angelo Mellone, the presence of a corner inside the Ariston theatre, for the correspondents of the various Rai programmes. In this regard, he sent me a harsh voice message which I quote verbatim: No day-time program should have ever entered the Ariston, except Live Life. No correspondent from any program could have entered the Ariston except for the Mrs. Giovanna Civitillo. All other correspondents from other programs must stay out of Ariston.”
The John Travolta case, Presta: “Amadeus knew”
The one released by Presta on the case of is also incendiary John Travolta at the Festival. “In October, Travolta’s manager (Oscar Generale) wrote to me if we were interested in the artist’s presence at a very low price because he shoe sponsor he was willing to pay the difference in his fee”, declared the television agent who assured that he had informed Amadeus of the matter, advising him against the operation. The host would have agreed with Presta. Yet in the end the American star got on the Ariston:
“In November, a month later, Travolta’s manager relaunched the offer. I didn’t reply but I shared with Alessio De Stefani, my collaborator and author of the Festival that they had offered again. I’m sure that once we arrived in Sanremo the manager contacted De Stefani and proposed everything again. The fact is that at the Festival, what the manager proposed then came true and the only people who knew of the proposal were Amadeus and De Stefani. In the meantime, with De Stefani and Dal Bello the collaborative relationship with Arcobaleno tre and also with me had been interrupted due to incorrect behavior and violation of industrial secrets. Dal Bello still collaborates with Amadeus as an assistant, I have no confirmation of De Stefani since The Voice has finished”.
Presta concluded by saying he had documentary evidence of everything he revealed. Amadeus version is awaited.
Photo source: ANSA
