«Tiziano Ferro didn’t wake up gay when he turned 30 – continues Sambruna –. It always has been. Alone, he couldn’t say it. Because her sexual orientation would also have mortally undermined the perfect teen idol image with which they had chosen to “sell” it to the crowds. A decision, too, entirely a product of the era in which ours made its debut. However, this does not make it right. Or not very harmful to him. If today a “fluid” look is practically imposed on any young artist, “put on these stiletto heels and go drag on stage”, at the time it was “not possible” to be openly homosexual and think of being successful in music. So Tiziano Ferro found himself answering for at least a decade the usual questions about what his ideal woman should be like. Fans from the early hours will certainly remember that chatty liaison with MTV VJ Giorgia Surina. It was even rumored that “Sere Nere” was dedicated to her and the end of their love story. In hindsight, she makes you laugh a lot. But this is not a funny story.”
Therefore the conditions imposed on Ferro by the management would have been: lose weight and not reveal that you are gay. Conditions that would have led him to a profound condition of unhappiness and to alcoholism and self-esteem problems. Sambruna writes again: «Legend has it, but here we are in the field of myths and legends, which after the success of “Rosso Relative”, as a record, Tiziano Ferro could no longer stand this gilded cage in which the only possible way to be loved was to deny himself every time he had to open his mouth. It is said that he had agreed upon one TV interview to come out, a term that didn’t yet exist, and put your mind off it. Interview prevented by all means by Maionchi, too interested in protecting the commercial interests of the “protégé”, the career of “his” creature. What is certain is that Ferro just wins the Festivalbar he gets on a plane and flies to South America “to go to university”. What is whispered is that he never wanted to return to Italy”.
So «Was Ferro “lucky” to meet Mara Maionchi? Perhaps more the opposite – reflects Sambruna –. If he didn’t have it intercepted her, it would have been up to Cecchetto or some other rampant manager looking for young talents. While Tiziano Ferro, in fact, already was Tiziano Ferro, a phenomenon like not many are born. About one per generation, to be good. Because you can find it today too a 19 year old who writes, composes and sings like this, without autotune, without hordes of famous authors to line up his words. The impositions – we reiterate, daughters of their time – that Maionchi “had to” place on the image of that twenty-year-old from Latina will have contributed to make him a pop star. But, first of all, a person infinitely unhappy off the stage, someone who had to learn right from the start to experience himself as a horrible secret.” «If Tiziano Ferro didn’t have to today be completely grateful to Mara Maionchifrom the human side and perhaps even from the artistic one, after all he would be right. Then call him ungrateful now, while the singer-songwriter is going through the pain of the divorce from her husband and has been repeating on several occasions for months that she is in black crisis on a musical level as well as being personal, on Mara Maionchi’s part, it is a beast of which there is very little to be proud of.”
