Clearly gunning for her second Oscar, Lady Gaga has recently been on the promotional trail for her latest film, House of Gucci.
Gaga stars in the film as Patrizia Reggiani, who was jailed in 1997 for arranging the murder of her husband and Gucci heir Maurizio Gucci, played by Adam Driver. It also features acclaimed actors Jared Leto, Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons as members of the famous Italian fashion family.
However, as the Ridley Scott-directed film was released in cinemas globally, the Gucci family has hit back at how they have been portrayed in the film.
According to Italian wire agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, the Gucci clan claim the film shows them as “hooligans” who were “ignorant and insensitive to the world that surrounded them”.
They say, in a letter signed by the heirs of Aldo Gucci, the eldest son of Guccio Gucci, who founded the company, that Reggiani “a woman definitively convicted of ordering the murder of Maurizio Gucci” was portrayed “as a victim".
Based on the book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden, the fashion world has also weighed in on the infamous Italian murder.
In his essay about the film for the website Air Mail, former Gucci designer Tom Ford, who's also featured in the film, wrote: “Was it a farce or a gripping tale of greed? I often laughed out loud, but was I supposed to?”
Here are four scenes from the film, and whether or not they actually happened …
Did Reggiani really mistake Maurizio for a bartender?
The pair met when Reggiani was 21 and Maurizio was 22 at a birthday party on November 23, 1970, thrown by his friend Vittoria Orlando. In the film, Reggiani mistakes the Gucci heir for a bartender, in a way that is meant to show her naivety and ignorance of the super-rich scion. However, according to Forden’s book, Reggiani already knew who Maurizio was, recognising him from Orlando’s description.
“I met Maurizio at a party and he fell madly in love with me. I was exciting and different,” Reggiani said. “I didn’t think much of him at first. He was just the quiet boy whose teeth crossed over at the front.”
Did Maurizio’s father cut off his son after he and Reggiani got engaged?
Yes, this part of the movie is true. After Maurizio proposed to Reggiani, his father Rodolfo, Guccio’s son, disinherited him, with family and friends revealing he didn’t like or trust Reggiani. An only child, Maurizio’s mother, Italian actress Sandra Ravel, died when he was 5, resulting in his father becoming overprotective.
When the young lovers married in 1972, Maurizio was cut off from the family company and went to work for Reggiani's father’s trucking company.
Did a television psychic find the hitman to kill Maurizio?
Of all the bizarre twists and turns of the Gucci story, it was a television psychic who introduced Reggiani to the man who would kill her husband.
In the film, Reggiani is seen phoning a hotline run by a TV psychic, Giuseppina "Pina" Auriemma (Salma Hayek), seeking life advice. While this isn’t how the pair actually met in real life, the two women were very close, with Reggiani often turning to psychics for advice and guidance.
Reggiani and Pina met at a health spa and began spending their summers together, with the psychic becoming the owner of a Gucci store.
Pina is the person who helped find the willing gunman after Reggiani asked her to. Pina turned to her friend Ivano Savioni for help who then asked pizzeria owner Orazio Cicala. He introduced them to the man who would pull the trigger, Benedetto Ceraulo.
Was Hollywood star Clark Gable connected to the scandal?
In a scene during which Aldo (Pacino) discovers he has been betrayed by his nephew Maurizio, Aldo only realises what has happened after seeing a pair of rare Gucci shoes designed for Hollywood film legend Clark Gable, on the feet of the head of private equity company, Investcorp.
While Gable did own a pair of rare Gucci shoes, which were made specifically for his film Mogambo, they did not have any gold leaf in the sole the way the film portrays, and were not instrumental as the tell tale sign of betrayal.
House of Gucci is now showing in cinemas across the UAE
