OfRenato Franco
The TV host: «My wife Raffaella Schifino and I don’t make the news, but we should: being together for 25 years seems like a perversion. The gossip? I was stalking Bonolis for Laura Freddi and he threw a pie in my face. Beppe Grillo asked me for 150 million”
Wikipedia writes that his mother was a “landowner”. Such medieval expressions had not been heard since the time of the Tsar.
«In fact it’s exaggerated, don’t imagine anything… My mother was the daughter of a family of agricultural entrepreneurs, I have beautiful images of her in her eighties still riding a tractor. However, there is also another thing wrong in my online bio: her date of birth. I’m from 1985, not 1965.”
Enrico Papi he can’t help but joke. She exaggerates, goes overboard, surfs over the top. Same as it is on TV. He has lived at least three lives – failed cabaret artist, king of telepaparazzi, TV presenter -, he has met hundreds of people, he has thousands of anecdotes that are partly true and partly fictional for the sake of not disappointing the viewer. Always looking for an audience.
Bourgeois family, inevitable parental expectations: what did they foresee for her?
«My dad didn’t want me to do this job, he dreamed of something safer. My mother on the other hand was more modern, she was my biggest fan. To prove to my father that I could do it, I started opening concerts in the squares. I moved around with a big Mercedes that consumed millions of liters per kilometer. I fooled around to entertain the public, I put together monologues that were funny to me, but people didn’t laugh so much.”
When did you realize he was the comedian who doesn’t make you laugh?
«One day I accidentally overheard the words of the manager who hired me: this Papi isn’t funny at all, but when he’s around it never rains, it’s good luck. I was very disappointed.”
The other disappointment he gave his father was that he was unable to graduate even from Cepu.
«What an experience… They took me as a testimonial after Del Piero. I had an established television career and was already well out of the way. In order to be their image man, however, I had to take at least three tests a year. I thought it was a walk in the park. I showed up for the first exam with the lecture hall full, I went in signing autographs. First question. Zero. Second question. Nothing. So I asked: but isn’t there a question to please? Meanwhile, a dead silence had fallen in the room. From there I understood that it was serious and I had to study. I closed the three exams to respect the agreement, but then I gave up. It was a lot of money, but I swear I don’t remember how much.”
More stumbles?
«I have always trusted myself a lot, perhaps even overestimated… Do you think that as a boy – I was already crazy at the time – I loved acting, as soon as I saved some money I rented a 100-seat theater in Rome to perform monologues by great authors , like Pirandello.”
Sorry if I laugh.
«You’re right to laugh. Nobody came to see me, only relatives and friends, every now and then ten/fifteen people.”
It was discovered by Magalli.
«In reality it was I who invaded his room, he had an office with a window on the ground floor, I knew he was preparing Fantastic encore and was looking for someone to do candid cameras. I entered directly from the street, from the window, to propose myself.”
Let’s pretend to believe it…
“I swear! Giancarlo was exceptional, he was impressed by my resourcefulness. One day that madman had an amazing idea: he made us dress in Nazi uniforms to ask for the military discount at the cinema. They called the police.”
Then came the gossip.
«I proposed a program on Rai. As soon as I said the words video and gossip I was kicked out. As soon as I entered through the window, they made me leave through the door… until one day Carlo Rossella, then director of Tg1, gave me the opportunity of a gossip programme. Chatter, broadcast after the night’s Tg1. It worked and I was lucky that Berlusconi didn’t sleep much: he saw me at night and contacted me to have me at Mediaset. I thought it was a joke, I too was the victim of a candid camera. I was semi-unknown and he took me instead of Sgarbi who was running for political office. In 1996 Daily Popes it was the turning point of my career.”
Among the “scoops” was the fight with Grillo: he wanted 150 million lire.
«He was on the beach in Porto Cervo, I showed up with the cameras and filmed him while he was swimming with his wife. He approaches, comes out of the water, smiles, takes the camera and then a piece of paper where he writes that I had to give him 150 million for releasing the images. I signed, I didn’t care. I broadcast the service asking for a public collection. Obviously there was neither the donation nor the complaint from Grillo.”
Bonolis threw a pie in her face.
“You know I don’t remember it.”
He was stalking him for Laura Freddi. Andrea Roncato also had the same reaction.
“Yes, he was okay with it: I persecuted him a lot, he gave us a lot of work.”
Mike Bongiorno said everyone hates her.
«What a pain… I was hiding in a hotel during the Sanremo Festival hoping to see him with some woman. But nothing. I edited a playful report, with his press office entering his room, he got very upset. Looking back, perhaps I had exaggerated.”
Worse, Mike or Ciampi’s wife who publicly called her “an idiot”?
«I was naive. I was at Sanremo hosted by Raffaella Carrà. She told me to do an irreverent DopoFestival, the risk of making a mistake was high.”
He made fun of the official of the Italian Consulate General in Buenos Aires for her dialect inflection. An international case.
«It was a mixture of naivety and generosity. There I understood that Sanremo creates incredible attention, even a sneeze becomes a nuclear explosion.”
What relationship did you have with Raffaella Carrà?
«A special person, attentive to details. One day she asked me if I knew how to play tressette.
— Of course, I’m very good, I replied. But it wasn’t true.
— Do you want to come and play a game at my house?
— I’m afraid I’m too strong for you.
In five days I learned all the rules. I don’t even know how I managed to get to the final table with Raffaella. He also asked me to come back, but I said that I had never lost and for me the defeat was too difficult to digest.”
Has the success of «Sarabanda» made you go to your head?
«In reality it was madness to accept. I was the king of telepaparazzi and suddenly I became a quiz host. At the beginning it didn’t take off, we had area code ratings. They gave me one more week. I was desperate. We made some small changes and it began to grow dramatically. I sweated it out, so I didn’t get too big.”
Side effects?
«That program had altered my life, I worked all day and I had lost the perception of real life. It was like being in Big Brother, I couldn’t distinguish reality and television, I saw the Cat Man at lunch even if he wasn’t there, I had hallucinations. I would wake up and think there were cameras. I was living a distorted reality.”
Costanzo was his best man at the wedding.
«When we met he was wary, I was imposed on him Happy Sunday and at the beginning we addressed each other on a formal note. Then a very strong personal relationship was born, despite the differences: one day she told me that we had a meeting at 7. I thought it would be in the evening, but it was in the morning.”
Did you argue with Ilary Blasi on «Isola»?
«But no, absolutely. They talked about it on social media, but I don’t believe much in social media.”
Pier Silvio Berlusconi gave her three programs (she is now on air on Italia 1 with «La pupa e il nerd» every Wednesday). Only Maria De Filippi dares so much.
“Hand! She is unattainable. Then I’m on Italia 1. I’m grateful to Pier Silvio Berlusconi for his esteem, I’m at the service of Mediaset, I don’t suffer from video bulimia, I don’t necessarily have to be there.”
He constantly posts shirtless photos on Instagram. How much do you like it?
«It was born as a joke, but I could see that I was receiving a lot of likes… It’s an ironic way to self-perculate, I know what I do is ridiculous. But I enjoy it.”
Instagram is self-referential, a selfie of the ego: self-mockery is not caught…
«I promise: I’ll try to stop, I’ll go to rehab! I reduce posts to just one photo a week.”
He said he was “fluid”.
«I don’t think I’ve made a great discovery. I have always thought that this distinction between the macho man who must never ask and the fragile woman who must be saved makes no sense. I could fall in love with a man or a woman in the same way, never having had any kind of foreclosure.”
Has he fallen in love with a man?
«Actually, no, but it could happen and I don’t see anything wrong with it».
Was it true that you had a love story with Valeria Marini?
Long silence. Smile. «I love Valeria very much, but I have the memory of the goldfish».
But excuse me, aren’t you the one who boasts of never having used the teleprompter because you have a great memory? (Silence follows.) Let’s go further. He has been married to Raffaella Schifino for 26 years, but you never end up in the gossip newspapers.
«We support ourselves: each of us has more defects than qualities and to be together we must be able to appreciate the defects above all. Our union doesn’t make the news, even though it really should: two people who have been together for 25 years resembles a perversion.”
April 28, 2024 (changed April 28, 2024 | 07:46)
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