Let's Not Forget Gianni Versace

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fountainhall

Let's Not Forget Gianni Versace

Post by fountainhall »

No, not the clothes. Apart from a jacket I once decided I'd rather like to have and wore about 3 times, I have never owned any item of Versace apparel. I have never stayed in a Versace hotel. But like I suspect many of us, I can never forget the manner of his death and the sadness, the futility surrounding it. As the world beats all manner of drums in memory of Princess Diana, let's not forget that Versace was murdered only a few weeks before her untimely death. And pictures of her comforting the weeping Elton John at Versace's funeral must have been shown on most television news broadcast around the world.

At that time, the publicity mostly focussed on the murderer, a stalker named Andrew Cunanan who had left a trail of death in his journey across America. Why he ended up shooting Versace in Miami we will never know for he shot himself a week later after a massive manhunt. Yet I can recall nothing being written about Versace's lover and partner of 15 years, Antonio D'Amico. He has rarely spoken about how the murder tore his "life in two" and sent him into a spiral of depression. Nor of the tensions with Versace's own family which resulted in his receiving only a fraction of the monthly stipend for life stipulated in Versace's will. In his depression, he finally told the family just to stop paying the rest.

In today's Observer, there is a revealing interview with D'Amico. He is talking out partly because next year a television drama about the murder "American Crime Story" will be aired with Ricky Martin playing D'Amico and Penelope Cruz as Donatella. It is, says D'Amico, filled with inaccuracies.
“There has been so much written and said about the murder, and thousands of suppositions, but not a trace of reality,”
Will we ever know the reality? Who knows? D'Amico himself finally came out of his depression and found love again eight years later. He now lives a quiet life with his partner in Northern Italy.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ridiculous
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