«Oh God, I don’t believe it!».
What’s up?
«They just told me that Anger is not enough for you won the gold record. My first gold!
Marianna Mammone, aka BigMama, from San Michele di Serino, in Irpinia, came to the UN Glass Palace to talk to kids about body shaming and bullying. At 24, she overcame physical and psychological violence, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the malice of her peers who abused her and threw stones at her and the indifference of adults. She tells everything in her autobiography One hundred eyes (Rizzoli), in bookstores from May 14th.
«When I finish talking to her I will burst into tears. For joy.”
After what happened to her…
«I wrote the book in one go. There were so many pieces of my story that needed to come out.”
Did your parents read it?
«No and I invite them not to do it, the truth hurts. And when I grew up, when I faced the disease, I understood how important they are. They don’t need to see their mistakes in black and white. They already know them. My father Italo knows that he spent all day working. And mother Angelina, after my grandmother died, found herself raising two children and not knowing how to do anything. They are the best parents in the world, but we are all human beings and we make mistakes.”
As a child, vain and surrounded by the affection of her family.
«My carefree years continued until elementary school. In the photos I posed, with sunglasses. I’ve always tried to get attention. I danced and sang on the table at my aunts’ house. My mind is clouded by the traumas I have suffered, but if I dig into my memory I find beautiful memories.”
Which?
«Mom who combs my hair, cuddles me, hugs me. My father gives me a kiss, picks me up and says I’m a beautiful little girl. And then my younger brothers, Guido and Manuele: their birth gave me my childhood back. I must have been 7 years old and they had just learned to walk. One day a dog had given birth in front of the house and they, very small, in white diapers, ran to cuddle the puppies.”
The relationship with his older brother, Giandomenico, is more tormented. How’s it going now?
«Well, we’ve grown up. She helped me shave my head when I lost my hair from chemo. That was the first time we apologized without speaking.”
She writes that in the ranking of the prettiest in the class she ended up in last place: “Because you’re a barge.”
«Kids defend themselves from a bad life with perfidy. However, I don’t justify adults.”
Did the professor who mocked you ever apologize?
«But when? She wrote me a message as if I were her daughter: Marianna dear, do you remember me?
And she?
«I ignored it. If I told him that he made me feel bad he would reply: “Okay but I was playing”. That teacher doesn’t realize that he has started an avalanche of negative comments and jokes from his classmates.”
What would you say to the boy who, when you were 16, locked you in the bathroom and raped you?
«I would repeat to him step by step what happened. For him, and for many like him, women are a commodity. Since then it has happened to me other times that they tried to abuse me, but I managed not to succumb. The last one was three or four years ago, I was drunk and someone put me in his car with the excuse that he was taking me home. He didn’t go through with it but the next day I was bruised. I haven’t drunk since.”
She is a fan of Salmo.
«He taught me that anger and a sense of oppression can be vented in songs. In my live shows I am inspired by her strength, but I don’t want to be a bad copy of anyone.”
He also opened his own concert.
«When Salmo told me I was rocking, my brain shut down. I thought of myself writing on Instagram in 2015: “Today I saw Psalm. Mauri (the rapper’s real name is Maurizio Pisciottu ed.) I swear to you that sooner or later we will shake hands””.
She arrived in Milan at the age of 18, studying at the Polytechnic, faculty of Urban Planning.
«I had also tried to enter a German university to study economics, an initiative promoted by a supermarket chain which, after graduation and an internship in the company, gives you a car and cell phone and you become a manager».
It didn’t go well.
«I received an email: I was third, I had very high potential that would have been wasted by them».
Sorry?
«No because in Milan I found my way in music».
She graduated?
«I only have one exam left. I won’t miss the piece of paper with Doctor Marianna Mammone written on it.”
At the May Day concert he said: “Failing is precious and believing in dreams saves.” She was discarded in 2023 at Sanremo.
«But Elodie called me for the duet evening. It was an inspiration. She charged me: “I love ‘don’t worry you’re strong. Go up, burn the stage, get down, you’ve done your job'”.
This year, however, the festival was held among the Bigs.
«I had signed up again among the young people but Amadeus after listening Anger is not enough for you he thought it was too good a message to bring to Ariston, I thank him for believing it. I hugged him on stage: Sanremo is a dream that, thanks to him, has become reality.”
The best compliment?
«The one from my legend Loredana Bertè: “You are very strong”».
She’s a goddess and has it tattooed on her décolleté.
«In 2021, for an advertising campaign my face was printed on giant billboards throughout Milan, I had sent fans… friends who treated me badly, I was getting to know Lodovica, my girlfriend, better, I had lost the kilos I had put on during chemo. I was proud of myself, very happy, I felt like a goddess. And I got it tattooed.”
He writes: «Women are perfect and I thought they were too much for someone like me».
«They are sensual, intelligent, superior beings, difficult to conquer… Of course, it depends on the people… It’s not that by saying I’m bisexual, lesbian, or whatever I want to be, I fall in love with them all. Until four years ago I had had relationships with men, with girls only affairs. Even with Lodo she started with occasional meetings, but when he made me understand that I could trust her, I thought I deserved the love of a woman.”
How did he win her over?
«With pasta and potatoes. Cooking is my message of love.”
Will you get married?
«Mom says that after I graduate I will be able to do whatever I want. As soon as I finish university I’ll propose to her.”
