Diego Dalla Palma abused by a priest as a child: the story
Diego Dalla Palma it was told in I livethe Show Reel Studios podcast in which he decided to retrace his long life and career path. The famous costume and set designer began working in Milan as a young man and then became a costume designer for Rai but, before the great job opportunity, he faced various obstacles. Interviewed by Corriere della Serarevealed: “I have faced all the storms, from poverty to bullying, from debt to isolation“, admitting that he feels “a survivor of human baseness“.
What marked him as a teenager were in particular the abuse he suffered from a priest at the Cavanis college in Venice, who eventually He decided to forgive anyway: “Many people who have been abused don’t share it because they think you have to be uncompromising and implacable. I, however, believe that mercy is a divine gift“.
Diego Dalla Palma, coma and misery: “I wasn’t going home a failure“
But Diego Dalla Palma he also experienced a bad illness as a child, lymphocytic meningitis which it put him in a coma. During the interview with Corriere della Sera the costume designer recalled that period thus: “The coma transports you into a dimension that has something wonderful about it. After I woke up, I was sulky and often hid in the woods: my trip had been so beautiful that I almost wanted to go back. Something that made my mother very angry“. But, remembering the beginnings of his career, Dalla Palma he also faced poverty when, very young ago, he moved to Milan to seek his fortune and things initially didn’t go right.
With doors closed in his face and little money to live on, the costume designer reveals that he has also arrived to the point of prostitution: “I did it to eat, I had cramps from hunger. I didn’t know where to go anymore. Unfortunately I was already accustomed to giving my body in silence, because of that priest who had taken advantage of me“. Before his great success, Dalla Palma often lied to his parents, reassuring them that he had stellar jobs and promising encounters with influential people: “I did it out of love, out of pity, out of recklessness. […] I had been so bullied and mocked that I would not have returned home a failure: rather, I would have gotten out of the way…“.
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