Antonella Clerici to Belve: “Ligabue didn’t come to my Sanremo, he said I tasted like sauce. In Rai there is never anyone who says thank you”

“What makes me angry? When they tell me I taste too much like sauce. Many singers didn’t come to mine Sanremo Festival due to some sort of prejudice. And one said: ‘It tastes too much like gravy’”. Antonella Clerici, guest of Francesca Fagnani at Beastson Rai 2 the boulder that he has jealously guarded since 2010 is removed.

“Then they told me, so I start by saying: if it’s not true, I apologize, but if it’s true, I expect your apologies. The singer was Ligabue. I did everything to have him at my festival, I liked him so much, I imagined him and me going away on a Harley Davidson. I was so upset, coming from him this is even more serious. We both know about sauce, he’s a nice big man, a little rough”.

The ‘sugogate’ has been revealed, who knows if Luciano Ligabue has ever uttered that phrase, if he regrets it, if he will say something. Meanwhile, Clerici, a frank, self-deprecating woman (“I’m a gentle beast”, she explains to Fagnani, “a bit of a labrador, a bit of a lioness”), in the interview she bluntly says what she thinks. She doesn’t even send word to Rai, where she has always brought results. And she expected something more. “I would have expected: ‘Thank you, you were fantastic’, you expect someone to applaud you, this company is not like that. I also suffered, a pat on the shoulder would be enough, I’m not saying a statue instead of a horse.”

Then on Cook’s test. “If I had done it at Mediaset today I would have bought half of Rome, we are talking about ten times what I get, but money has never been my priority. Once the Sanremo festival was over I didn’t ask for a penny increase, just to do mine Cook’s test that they took from me when I was pregnant. The Rai managers have disappeared.” But did they take her off the program because she was pregnant or for other reasons? “At first they said to me: ‘Since you’re giving birth’, but then, afterwards, I expected them to say: ‘Take your seat again… They hadn’t taken into account the public’. He took her place Elisa Isoardi, “but that’s not the point, if the roles were reversed I would have done what she did”. After two years he gets it back The cook’s test. “Things can be done,” he says, referring to how she was treated by managers, “but there is always a way.” Still talking about the work environment, he talks about true friends (“Carlo Conti And Fabrizio Frizzi”) and crushes Barbara d’Urso. “I certainly didn’t love a presenter who was at Mediaset at the time, Barbara d’Urso, because she insulted me on a personal level, which I suffered a lot. It was 2011, I was in a moment of great success, my little girl was 2 years old, my partner betrayed me (Eddy Martens, father of daughter Maelle, ed), with the cover of Who who published the photos. She opened it Afternoon 5 saying ‘Tomorrow Eddy’s lover is here’, then we managed to block everything. I would never have done it, a scoop at all costs.” “I think she is a very good professional who doesn’t have my management style,” she adds, “this thing hurt me a lot.”

She explains that no one has ever asked her to host the next Sanremo festival. But does the fact that they haven’t investigated it yet bother you?, asks Fagnani. “She is back in our Rai world” replies the presenter. They probably asked Conti. “But you said no? You said you don’t do it with such and such?” insists Fagnani. “Why should I lie?” replies Clerici, who explains that she doesn’t mind him. “I have my things, my plans, worse for them. I don’t care, I’ve already done it, it’s not in my ambitions.” In 2018 you said that you were at Rai “as Totti to Rome” and it seems that, despite everything, the presenter of It’s always midday, which achieved great ratings with the various editions of The voice, he hasn’t changed his mind. “Every time I get angry, I say: ‘It’s my last year’ but I’m fine here”.

Also comment Amadeus’ farewell: “I was sorry, he’s a TV great, I found his farewell courageous. He talked about new dreams, I think he wants to challenge himself with different things and have a different role.” He says she doesn’t like “either commanding or obeying”, years ago he revealed that he was certainly not on the left. “I have always been super partes”, he clarifies, “a way to survive, to stay out of these power games”. He says he commands respect (“more tiger claws on people in power, never on the people I work with”), motto “Never a queen, never an idiot”, a very happy private life with the entrepreneur Vittorio Garrone, with whom he chose the tree under which to be buried together in the woods surrounding their house, because he hates cemeteries. And she is ironic when Fagnani recalls that she said that she didn’t like wealthy suitors with expensive cars. Has she changed her mind? “Okay, after so many boyfriends to support, finally one who supports himself”. She talks about the father of her daughter Eddy, “for whom I had canceled myself”, about the great desire for motherhood of that period. And she remembers flirting with her Massimo Giletti. “He disappeared on New Year’s Eve, he always disappeared,” she says, amused. “He says that he celebrated it with the parents of Juventus” replies Fagnani “he told me that he won two million old lire with a bag of ten thousand lire”. “Because he is very stingy” laughs Clerici. Soft and smiling, Clerici likes herself, she explained that she has the physique of Stefania Sandrelli in the movie The key Of Tinto Brass. “I found that being ‘not perfect’ to be true sensuality. When I was younger I was sexy, now not always… But I feel good in my body.” He gives a lot of importance to sex and no, he couldn’t date a vegan intimately. “A macrobiotic in bed? Not very imaginative, just the missionary position, it all becomes very bland. It’s not so much what you do, but also a bit of the whole thing: what do you do with a man who eats salad and discards the fat from the ham?”. She would convert him.