- Today's video is
brought to you by Audible. Go to audible.com/kendallrae
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check out House of Gucci by Sarah Gay Forden. (soft music) Hello, everyone and
welcome back to my channel. So happy to have you here. If you are new, welcome. I got to say, I am really
excited to film today's video. I've been wanting to do a video
on this topic for at least a month now, if not longer. But it's a complicated one so it took a long time to
pull this all together. But we are going to be talking
about the true story behind the new movie House of Gucci, which is also a book that
came out back in 2020 by Sarah Gay Forden called House of Gucci. It is available on Audible,
who is today's sponsor. So many of you have probably
seen House of Gucci. It came out in November
and it stars Lady Gaga and Adam Driver and Jared Leto is in it. A bunch of other great actors.
I thought it was so, so good. But I do know there are mixed
opinions about it out there. I personally loved it. I saw it twice. I thought Lady Gaga was fantastic. But I do got to say the true
story behind House of Gucci is quite different than the movie was. Of course, it's a movie it's Hollywood. They've got to kind of twist
it to make it work better to make it not so long because I mean, this movie was close
to three hours anyway, and I can't even imagine how
long it would be if it included everything in it. But it really is a fascinating story. And so today I wanted
to tell you about it, especially for those of you
who didn't see the movie or have heard nothing
about the Gucci family, which none of the Gucci family
actually owns Gucci anymore. None of them, which is really interesting. But just their family history, how they started Gucci and all
this scandal along the way, as well as the murder of Maurizio Gucci is pretty interesting stuff. So let's go ahead and
dive in where it all began back with Guccio Gucci. And also, I just want to say,
I am clearly not Italian. Okay, a little bit. I'm only 20% Italian, but my pronunciation for
Italian words is pretty trash. So I apologize in advance
to all my Italian friends or people who just know the
proper pronunciation. I'm going to do my best. And hopefully seeing the
movie twice, you know, helps me a little bit. But yes, starting with Guccio Gucci who was born on March 26th, 1881. He was born in Florence, Italy to parents, Elena and Gabriello who is
actually a leather craftsmen. And that's an extremely important
key that Guccio would need in order to start the Gucci brand. And fun fact, the double
G in the Gucci logo actually stands for Guccio Gucci. So his early life wasn't
too well-documented. But we do know that as a
teenager Guccio was working at the Savoy Hotel in London. And it was actually during that time, working at the Savoy Hotel
that he really developed a fascination with the luxurious, luxurious lifestyle of the upper-class. And obviously working at a hotel, he was handling a lot of luggage and a lot of wealthy people's luggage. And that kind of sparked
an interest for him in the world of luggage. And at that time, a brand called H.J. Cave & Sons was one of the only luxury leather
accessory brands on the market. And so it was a big inspiration to him, but he felt like he could
take what they were doing and do it better, especially with having a
leather craftsmen as a father. He had worked in his father's
leather shop for years. So he actually had a lot of experience and knowledge about leather. In 1901, he ended up marrying
a woman named Aida Calvelli, and together they raised six
children, some of their own, and some of them were from
Aida's previous marriage. And their names were Ugo, Aldo, Rudolfo, Grimalda, Vasco and Enzo. Aldo Gucci was born on May 26th, 1905, and he was their oldest biological son. Rodolfo Gucci was born on July 16th, 1912, and Vaso's date of birth, I had trouble finding,
it's somewhat unclear, but we do know he was pretty close in age to his brother Rodolfo. So by 1921, Guccio Gucci had finally opened up his
first official store in Italy. And at first he was actually
selling leather saddles, bags and other accessories
to horsemen in the area. And that's how Gucci really began. It started as a shop for a equestrians, and that actually can be
seen on some of their items to this day. Their horse bit emblem has lived on for over a hundred years. His son Aldo although began
working for him when he was 16 and he became a full-time
employee after he graduated from San Marco college in Florence. And then in the 1930s, Guccio also brought his other
two sons Vasco and Rodolfo into the family business. And around that time in the 1930s, there was actually a leather shortage and that was due to the league of nations putting an embargo against Italy. So Guccio had to find leather alternatives for their products. And that's how the hemp woven
bag with the signature brown, interconnecting diamonds on
a tan background was created. And to be honest, I am pretty
clueless about, you know, classic Gucci items and
what they sell today. I just am not really into designers. I just think the story behind
it is very fascinating, but that design actually
ended up being incredibly successful for Gucci and kind of started to get them on the map. So his son Aldo took full
advantage of the opportunity to be part of the company and was
fully dedicated to expanding the Gucci brand and making
it recognizable worldwide. - We are like a, an Italian Trattoria, the
whole family is in the kitchen, and so we are. - By 1938, Aldo opened
the first Gucci store outside of Italy and the
expansion did not stop there. Even though Guccio
never wanted or intended for Gucci to go international, Aldo kind of had his own
vision for the company and really took it to the next level. In late December of 1952, actually two weeks before Guccio died, Aldo opened the first
Gucci store in America at the Savoy Plaza hotel
on East 58th street in New York City. And here's another little fun fact. So after Guccio Gucci died, his sons, Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo took on the family business. But Aldo did take on the role of president of the company. So Aldo really had control
of Gucci for the most part. And over the years, he introduced a variety
of new product lines like designer shoes, watches, perfume, and he kind of transformed Gucci into more of what we know it as today. And he started bringing
in millions of dollars into the business. Rodolfo was involved in the
family business a little bit, not as much as his brother because he had some other things
going on in his life. He was actually an actor and he starred in more than 40 films from 1929 to 1946. And Aldo and Rodolfo ended up being the only original Gucci family members to go on and have their own families, which obviously means the
family business would be passed on to their kids one day. Aldo had four kids, however, in the movie, he only had one Paolo, but he also had a daughter
and two other sons. The movie was more accurate
about Rodolfo's family because he only did have one son, Maurizio, who was the star of House of Gucci really played by Adam driver. Maurizio was born on September 26th, 1948 in Florence, Italy. His mother actually died when
he was only five-years-old. So his father was his primary caregiver. And Maurizio took a liking
to the family business from a really young age. He actually started working
for Gucci as a package boy. And that kind of gave him the opportunity to learn more about how
the business operated. So in the movie Maurizio
meets Patrizia at a party and this is actually spot on. It was November of 1970,
Maurizio was just 22-years-old and he attended a party in Milan. And that's where he met his
wife, Patrizia Reggiani. Just like in the movie, he said that she was
beautifully dressed in red and looked like Elizabeth Taylor. Now let's talk about Patrizia Reggiani. She was born December
2nd, 1948 in Vignola Italy and had a much different
upbringing than Maurizio. Her mother Silvana, worked as a waitress until she got pregnant with her. And she actually raised her alone because the man who impregnated
her pretty much dipped out as soon as he found out. So she and her mother struggled
a lot during her childhood. And it wasn't till she was 12-years-old that she got her first
kind of taste of wealth. At that point Silvana met and
married a rich entrepreneur named Fernando Reggiani who
adopted Patrizia and showed her kind of what it was like to
live the extravagant life. And from the beginning, Patrizia loved it, and never wanted to go back. As she got older, she
really started to understand the difference between
old money and new money. Old money means higher status and that was something that
Patrizia realized she wanted from a young age. So when she met Maurizio Gucci, this was a very good opportunity for her. Now, Patrizia has said that
she didn't really think much of Maurizio when she first met him. And she has denied that
she wanted to marry him because he was a Gucci, but
a lot of people suspect that. But the two of them began
dating and from the start, their relationship caused
issues in their family. Because Rodolfo, Maurizio's
father hated Patrizia. From the beginning he thought
that she was just using him for his money and his name. But Maurizio did not think that was true and he ended up proposing to
Patrizia after knowing her for about two years. And when Rudolfo found out about this, he basically gave Maurizio and ultimatum. He would have to pick
between Gucci and Patrizia, and he ended up picking her. So he was kind of exiled
from the Gucci family for a couple of years. And just like in the movie, no one from the Gucci
family attended his wedding. And there was a lot of
other drama going on in the Gucci family, just from the time that
Guccio had passed away, especially between Aldo and Rodolfo. They had a lot of differences in opinion, when it came to how the
brand should be run. In one instance, Paolo Gucci,
who is played by Jared Leto, ratted on his own father and
had him put in jail for a year and a day on tax evasion charges after learning about his
father's illegal activity. And one of the reasons
that Paolo did this, and this is well portrayed in the movie, is he wanted to start
his own designer label that was a little bit more
affordable and accessible for the average person and
Aldo did not like that. So he shut it down. And not only did he reject
the idea of this label, but he also demoted his
son to a smaller role in the business and
this really hurt Paolo. So he turned the tables right back on him. And Paolo decided to go ahead and try to create this label anyway. He went behind his father and uncle's back and tried to create the label. And he ended up getting
temporarily fired from Gucci because of that. So getting back to Maurizio and Patrizia. They ended up getting married in 1973 and that same year Vasco dies, which caused another major
shift in the business. Because Vasco and his
wife never had children his percentage of Gucci went to her, but she was quickly bought
out by Aldo and Rodolfo and they ended up sharing the
company 50/50 at that point. Aldo ended up giving each
of his sons 3.3% of his 50% of the company leaving himself with 40%, which means Rodolfo now
had the majority stake. But this wasn't really an
issue for them at the time, because they all did have a similar vision for where they wanted
Gucci to go in the future. And Aldo still was definitely head honcho when it came to the
everyday of the business. He was operating as the chairman for all Gucci shops starting in 1953. And he was recognized as a
marketing genius at the time. A lot of people also described him as the engine behind Gucci. And Aldo ended up helping
smooth things over between Maurizio and
Rodolfo after he got married about two years after he and
Patrizia had gotten married. After they had kind of
patched things up Maurizio was back in the family business. And Aldo actually wanted him and Patrizia to move to New York and
work with him there. And eventually Patrizia
had won over Rodolfo. She was just very likable, very charming, and he ended up gifting her and Maurizio a luxury penthouse in the
Olympic Tower in New York City. So by the late 1970s, the two of them are living
their lives in luxury. And as you can imagine,
Patrizia is happier than ever. She was starting to make a
major impression on high society and all the elite women of New York. - It's true, money cannot
buy happiness. This for sure. But anyway, it's better to, it's better, much better to have
money than not to have. It's better to cry in Rolls Royce than to be happy in, on a bicycle. That's for sure - She would always be found wearing the most expensive clothing and attending the most
important social events. - She was at lunch, you
know, she'd have a pin on that was probably about $125,000 and she made no bones about it that she loved what she'd got. She was up and running and
doing and was going somewhere with him or, you know, going on a yacht or
going on a private plane. - The two of them really
presented themselves as kind of this powerhouse couple. And they became friends with
people like the Kennedys and the Taylors. Even though they did have kind of a rocky relationship with them. And they definitely were not afraid of flaunting their wealth. The two of them owned a variety of multi-million dollar homes, including a Villa in Mexico and a 54-meter wooden yacht, named Creole. And it was actually the nicest and most expensive
racing yacht of its time. And they were also really
known for their parties. They would have these
big luxurious parties and of course they invited
tons of celebrities. Patrizia also was working
for Gucci at the time as the chief advisor of the fashion house. She had many ideas for the
company and she was not shy about sharing her vision with her husband who actually was not too
interested in what she had to say. Patrizia was constantly
trying to control Maurizio and it was really no secret to all of their friends and family that she wanted to steer
the company in the direction that she saw fit despite really not having the power to do so. And eventually she became
known as Lady Gucci and that title meant a lot to her. Now Maurizio and Patrizia did
have two children together. This was one thing that the
movie did not show correctly. I'm sure just for time sake. They did show that they had
a daughter named Alessandra who was born in 1977, but they also had another
daughter named Allegra, who was born in 1981. And at the time where they
were very socially famous, Gucci was probably at its peak as well. Stores had been opened in
Palm Beach, Paris, London, Beverly Hills, Tokyo, and
many other notable locations. By this time, Gucci had become one of
the top names in fashion, especially in the 1960s and 70s. Their designs were being
worn by famous celebrities, such as Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy and of course, Elizabeth Taylor. By 1982, after seven years
of living in New York City, they decided to move
back to Italy, to Milan. And by this point they
were living the dream life, the most luxurious life
you could possibly imagine. But behind the scenes, the two of them were fighting a lot and their relationship was quite rocky. And only one year after
their return to Milan, Maurizio's father Rodolfo passed away. And as you can imagine, this turned the entire Gucci family and business upside down once again. Because now Maurizio,
who was only 38-years-old was the majority shareholder
in Gucci owning 50% of the business. And obviously Patrizia was
absolutely thrilled about this, mainly because she thought she was going to end up with more control. I mean the more control her husband had, she figured she would
get that control as well. She really believed that
with Maurizio in power that she was kind of in power. But Maurizio was not a trusting person. He didn't trust anyone in his own family. And now that he owned half the business, he got to start calling the
shots and he really didn't have much concern for
what anyone else wanted. And I thought that this
was pretty well portrayed in the movie that there was a major shift
in Maurizio around this time. Before he got majority ownership of Gucci, he was a much kinder man. Many people said that afterwards, he just became very
money hungry and selfish. And Patrizia has said that as
soon as Maurizio got his 50%, he really stopped caring about anything and anyone except for himself. - We have this transformation. Mr. Jekyll became Dr. Hyde. And this is incredible
because I'm still convinced that he's a good person, but
he's acting in a different way. - As I mentioned earlier,
the 1960s and 70s was really the golden era
of Gucci as it's called. And that's because sales
were through the roof and business was thriving. They were opening tons of locations. However, when Rodolfo died, the company had really
spread itself too thin by licensing the brand. They were starting to
lose their luxury title, and it was no longer
something just for the elite. Basically, any department store that wanted to carry Gucci, could, making it something that the
everyday person would have, not just the socially elite. And it was also around this
time that there were a lot of fakes being made and they
showed this in the movie, and Patrizia was very upset about it. Of course, everyone in the
family had an opinion on how they could return Gucci to its former
glory, especially Maurizio. He really wanted to reign in
the licensing and try to make the products really only
accessible to the rich once again. He decided that he kind
of wanted a fresh start. He wanted all new designs
and all new designers. And the idea of Gucci being
a family-run business, which was really important
to everyone else before him really was not important to Maurizio. He really wanted to bring in
some new people with new ideas. And Aldo was especially unhappy. He was not ready or
willing to give up control of the company that he was responsible for making so successful. So once Maurizio really started
trying to call the shots because he had a majority stake, Aldo and his sons started retaliating. - Maurizio was consumed with
the desire to be elder Gucci. And it was never meant to
be because they were too, they were both cut out
of different cloths. - In life, I be in the
engine of the family. - [Interviewer] The engine. - And the whole family are the wagons. Now, you know, the engine without the
wagons, it's worthless. And the wagon without the
engines, they don't move. But if you put them together,
you create something. - I also want to point out
that there were a lot of things happening with the Gucci
family during the 80s, both personally and professionally. And I'm going to start out by
talking about what happened with the actual business. And then I'll rewind a little
bit and talk about the crazy things that were happening
behind closed doors. So by the mid-80s, Aldo in his sons were
convinced that Maurizio had forged a signature, his father's signature on
documents that would allow him to avoid paying millions of
dollars in inheritance taxes. But he denied all of these
allegations and stated publicly that this was just a
pre-ordained personal attack. But the lawsuit against
Maurizio actually made news all around the world. And
an investigation began. And eventually a Gucci
employee actually testified that the signature was fake. So authorities went Maurizio's
house to make an arrest. And as the authorities headed
over to Maurizio's house to make an arrest, his
personal driver Luigi, actually tipped him off and he was able to leave before they could do that. He was actually able to escape
through the back door before they could get to him and
take off on his motorcycle and head to Switzerland. - You are not in hiding
because you are innocent. You are in hiding because
you must have done something. - [Interviewer] Your husband is guilty. - Well, I'm sure he is. - [Interviewer] Of? - Of, I mean, you know,
he has been too excessive. - [Interviewer] Did you
participate in the forged signing of a document, which would have saved immense in amount of taxes and inheritance? - Absolutely not. - For two years after that, the Italian magistrate seized
Maurizio's shares of Gucci until he was later
acquitted of all charges relating to the forgery in 1987. And because the charges were now dropped, Maurizio was now in possession of 50% of the company once again, and was ready to take revenge
against his uncle Aldo. So in order to finally get
complete control over Gucci, Maurizio would need more shares to tip his percentage over 50%. But he knew with all the
animosity in the family, he would have a hard time doing that. So he partnered with merchant bankers, Morgan Stanley to help him find a buyer, someone willing to put forward the cash to help Maurizio buy
out more of the company. And they ended up settling on Investcorp. And they helped Maurizio identify a weakness in
the family alliance. - [Speaker] Maurizio
targeted his cousin Paolo who was still struggling
to set up his own label as the Gucci most likely to sell. - He was one of Aldo's oldest sons who clearly did not have a very
good relationship with him. And at the time he was really
struggling financially. So they used him to their advantage. After a very long negotiation, Paolo ended up selling his 3.3% of Gucci to Maurizio for $47 million. - Aldo's reaction was
quite desperate in fact. He was certainly upset
almost in a physical way. He thought that not only there was the additional betrayal by his son Paolo, which in a way he was not surprised of. He was just sorry because he felt that somehow his participation in the company and his children's
participation in the company were creating value and he saw that value being
destroyed by somebody else. - And sadly for Aldo and his other sons, it wasn't long after he
took complete control that the rest of the
family cashed in as well. Selling over the rest of
their shares to Maurizio. And then just two years
after losing the company that he had really built
in his father's name, Aldo died at the age of 84. And surprisingly Maurizio did
attend his uncle's funeral, but because of how
everything had gone down and how much he really
screwed him at the end, he was definitely not
welcome at the reception. But now that he had full
control and his family was out of the way, Maurizio was able
to do whatever he wanted, which was to redeem the Gucci brand. As I mentioned before, Gucci had really over-licensed the brand and that really kind
of diluted its novelty. So Maurizio decided to end
up pulling 16,000 products from the shelves leaving only 4,000 that could actually be produced and sold. - From 20,000 different
items, Gucci reduced their line to 7,000 and went
to 4,000 different items. - And he decided to bring
in an entirely new team to replace his family members. And this is when Tom Ford got involved. He was hired as the new chief designer, and this actually was
a good move for Gucci. They started becoming more
positively viewed fashion at fashion shows and their image
started to improve as well. So now let's backtrack a little bit. I said, we were going
to go over the business. It's too confusing to do this all at once. Now, let's get back to
their personal lives. So while all of this madness
and drama is going on within the business and
within the Gucci family, Maurizio and Patrizia's marriage
was really falling apart. Now, Maurizio was always
known to have mistresses from time to time. But in the early 1980s, he started really
developing a relationship with a woman named Sheree. And he had actually met
her three years prior at a yacht race. So the two of them actually
worked closely with each other on the design of his yacht, the Creole, which ended up costing
him more than $25 million in decor and renovations. And they actually were both married at the time that they met,
but this did not stop them. When they were together he would tell her how unloving and unkind Patrizia was. And on many occasions, he actually told her that he was worried Patrizia might have him killed, especially if she lost her
power or any social status after they inevitably
would become divorced. So eventually he had enough
of her and he decided to leave her and his daughters
and filed for divorce. So Patrizia lost her husband
and her prize social status, and all the benefits that came along with being a Gucci all at
once and she was pissed. And Maurizio pulled a real dick move by not even telling her
that he was leaving. Instead, he told her that he
was taking a business trip to Florence, and then he
had one of his friends come and tell her the news. Now, obviously this is
a really shitty thing for someone to do. Pretty cowardly. But it really shows you just
how distant their relationship really was at this point. So as you can imagine,
Patrizia wanted to get even. She wanted to take revenge. So for years after he left, Patrizia would stalk
him and his new lover. She would also call them and leave super threatening messages, and she even paid off
some of Maurizio's drivers to spy on them. And everyone knew how much
she hated him and Sheree. And eventually Sheree just
had enough of the drama. And the two of them decided to split. In 1980, Maurizio quickly moved on and he became romantically involved with interior designer, Paola Franchi. Now Paola actually was a
childhood friend to Maurizio and she actually went to
his and Patrizia's wedding. The two of them rekindled their
relationship after running into each other at a
private club in Switzerland. Although Patrizia hated Sheree, Patrizia thought that Paola
was the real gold digger and that she was only using Maurizio for his status and money. Which is super ironic
because that's clearly what Patrizia was doing all along. Plus it didn't really make a
lot of sense because the man that Paola was married to before Maurizio was actually much richer than him. So as Maurizio began to win
over the family business and strayed further away from Patrizia, her anger just got worse. She was just absolutely
boiling over with anger because he seemed to just
be doing better and better, becoming richer and richer and the Gucci brand was coming back. Meanwhile, she was losing everything. In the beginning of their
divorce negotiations, Mauricio's lawyer offered to pay Patrizia a settlement of $2.5 million in addition to $650,000 every year. And she actually denied this. But the reality was
Maurizio was not as rich as he seemed to be. The dude was always flexing and eventually all of that caught up with him. - Cars, chauffeurs, private planes, furniture is in the office,
big dinners in Milan, whatever. This was always paid with
his personal credit cards. He didn't want to feel responsible of taking one lira out of the company. - He actually owed tens
of millions of dollars, which he didn't have to investors. And he did have a ton of assets that were worth millions of dollars, but he didn't have any tangible
cash to pay off these debts. And if he didn't pay the money, he would end up losing ownership of Gucci, despite everything he
had done to gain control. Now, a large reason that money was tight had to do with the restructuring of Gucci. The entire revamp of
Gucci did bring it back, but it happened at an insanely high cost. In 1991, just a year after dating Paola, he ended up filing for
divorce from Patrizia. He had left her years before, but this really made it real,
and made it real to her. Patrizia always kind of
thought she would get him back in the end, but him filing
papers just made it concrete. And that same year Patrizia was actually diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to be rushed
into emergency surgery. And she actually thought
that this might win him back. You know, she thought
he would be so scared and worried about her, that
he would come crawling back. She had hoped that he
would rush to the hospital and be right there by her side when she woke up from surgery. But that was not the case. In reality, when she woke
up from surgery, Maurizio had only sent her a bouquet of flowers and he had a card along with it that just had his name on it. So she was quite disappointed. But luckily for her, the
tumor ended up being benign. So it was not a concern. But this entire experience and
feeling like Maurizio truly didn't care about her anymore really sent Patrizia over the edge. And by this point it kind
of became common knowledge that she wanted him dead. In fact, on several different occasions, she brought up the idea
of having Maurizio killed. One time she just mentioned
it to her house cleaner. Another time she asked her lawyer what would happen if she
went through with it. She was obsessed with the idea of getting rid of him
and getting that revenge. And it was around this time
that she started asking strangers if they knew anyone who could take care of him for her. Now Patrizia says that her obsession was truly just an obsession.
It was just an idea. But she wasn't actually
going to go forward with it. But then in 1993, she got serious about it because she was angry and
devastated that Maurizio ended up selling all of his
shares of Gucci to Investcorp. Now, Investcorp is a global manager of alternative investment products for private and institutional clients. They also acquired Tiffany & Co in 1984. And over the years they've
had over 175 huge investments. So why did Maurizio decide to sell the rest of his
shares to Investcorp? Well, he did it for many reasons, but mainly it was an attempt
to bring the company back to the top of the charts. And it was around that time
that he ended up pulling several thousand lower-end products to
focus on higher-end products. But when he did that, the reality was that
these lower-end products were actually really
bringing in the company most of their money. And pulling them cost the
company millions of dollars. And selling his percentage of the business was really the only way to
keep him from going broke because he was also spending
a wild amount of money on various luxury items,
watches, houses, yachts. And he was in quite a lot of debt. And so Patrizia was very angry about this because she was definitely
no longer Lady Gucci anymore. She owned 0% of the company. Although the number varies
depending on who reports it, it's estimated that
Maurizio got $200 million for selling out. And once he did for the
first time in over 70 years, there were no Gucci family
members involved in Gucci at all. And of course, Patrizia
was very angry about this. You know, all the decisions
that Maurizio was making, his spending habits. She felt like he had kind of betrayed his whole family and her. So it was then that she
really hit her breaking point. And that brings us to March 27th, 1995. Maurizio was casually walking
into his office in Milan when he was shot three times. First in the shoulder, then in the back and the third in his head. And Maurizio was
pronounced dead on arrival. And not many Gucci's actually
showed up to his funeral. He didn't really have a lot of family who cared about him at the end. His daughters, Alessandra
and Allegra were there and Patrizia surprisingly was there, even though her behavior right
off the bat at the funeral, really struck people
there as incredibly odd. During the initial investigation, police spoke with a doorman
at Maurizio's office who witnessed the whole attack happen. He told police that when he saw the gun, he thought it was an unusual length. It looked long, as if the
shooter had used a silencer. And he said that the shots
had definitely been muted. But surprisingly or not surprisingly, the police dismissed the idea of this being a professional attack. But this was mainly because
they believed a professional would have also shot and killed the doorman for being a witness. And they also felt if this was
a true professional hitman, they wouldn't have needed three
shots to get the job done. Because Maurizio's debt was no secret, it was also suspected that
someone he had owed money to, you know, came after him. They looked into some possibilities, but they ended up dismissing them. From the beginning many
people had a strong suspicion that it was Patrizia, especially because she had
mentioned wanting him dead and wanting to hire someone
to kill him many times over the years. And everyone
knew how much she hated him. But when she was brought
in for questioning her alibi was rock solid. So the case actually went
cold for two years before an anonymous tip eventually
came into the police chief in January of 1997. - [Translator] This man called me. He said he had information about a murder. He said to meet him in this
rather dangerous part of Milan if I was interested to find out more. So I asked him to give a reason why I should meet him
in such a dingy area? And he said, I know
about the Gucci murder. (speaking Italian) - And when the chief met
with this anonymous tipster, he told him that the hotel porter, which is basically a
bellman had been bragging about being part of the gang that was hired to kill Maurizio Gucci. This man's name was Ivano Savioni. And even though he wasn't
responsible for actually pulling the trigger, he knew who
was and who orchestrated it. So to catch the rest of the people, responsible for what happened, an officer went undercover
as a Colombian gangster. And during this operation, he learned the names of four
other individuals involved, including Benedetto
Ceraulo, who was the hitman, and Orazio Cicala, who
was the getaway driver. And also a woman named Pina Auriemma, who actually was a psychic
who helped Patrizia find the hitman and
arrange the whole thing. Now, this is very interesting, but when Patrizia was arrested, she was brought to the police station that was right across the street from the very church that
she had gotten married in almost 30 years prior. And of course, Patrizia did deny having any
direct connection to the murder of her ex-husband. Instead she told police
that Pina and the others had blackmailed her for
$375,000 for the crime that they had already committed. However, she didn't deny that she had mentioned
wanting Maurizio dead. - [Speaker] She said at first she'd been blackmailed by
the killers into paying them for carrying out the murder. - Yes. I know that
people, the killer group. Yes, I've paid them, but I didn't order to make the murder. They were asking me money saying, hey, we have done what you always wish it. We know that you wanted
it and we have done it. Now you have to pay us. And she say, I gave them money because
they were blackmailing me. They were saying, if you don't pay something bad
will happen to your daughter, to your family. - But she always said that
it was just a thought, not something that she was actually going to follow through with. Of course, the police were
insanely skeptical of this, considering how many people she told that she wanted Maurizio dead. And they found out that Pina and Patrizia were actually really good friends. It turns out Pina had actually been in Patrizia's life for years. And the two of them had
actually even been seen together after Maurizio's death. So if Pina was actually
blackmailing Patrizia it wouldn't make sense why
they were still hanging out. - Patrizia Reggiani had the continued to have a good relation
with Pina Auriemma. You can't have a good
relation with the person who will kill your husband and
then ask you money for that. - And after the police
collected all of their evidence, it became very clear that
Patrizia was absolutely involved in the murder of Maurizio and
she was named by everyone else involved as the mastermind behind it all. And they actually did find out
that a variety of different payments were made by Patrizia
to her co-conspirators, which made it very obvious
that she was the mastermind. But the creepiest thing that they found was Patrizia's diary. Just 10 days before Maurizio was shot, Patrizia wrote in her diary that there was no crime
that couldn't be bought. And on the actual day of
the murder in her own diary, Patrizia just wrote the
word paradise in Italian. Patrizia spent a year in prison before her case actually went to trial, and in this year she tried
to maintain her innocence. And even went into the trial
with a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. During trial in 1999,
she explained that, yes, she did have an obsession with the idea of killing her husband, but it was Pina who took advantage of her and acted on it without her knowledge. Although on the stand, Patrizia did say that paying
Pina was worth every penny. So that's odd. But in the end it was
determined that Patrizia had orchestrated the entire thing. The hitman, Benedetto was
actually a pizzeria owner with a great deal of debt. And he agreed to kill
Maurizio for 250,000 euros, which today is worth about
$455,000 in US currency. And at the end of the trial, all five of them were found guilty. Benedetto was sentenced to life in prison. Ivano was sentenced to 26 years. Orazio, the getaway driver
was sentenced to 29 years and Pina was sentenced to 25. And lastly Patrizia was sentenced to only 29 years in prison. And about a year later in 2000, her sentence was actually
reduced to only 26 years. And while in prison, Patrizia said that she was
able to catch up on her sleep, which is nice. She spent a lot of her
time watering her plants, and she even was able to
bring her pet ferret in there. And he kept her busy as well. And this is wild, but in October of 2011, Patrizia was offered early release if she joined a work program. Surprisingly, she turned this down and said that she had never
worked a day in her life and was not going to start now. However, three years after denying her first work release opportunity, she did agree to join one in
2014 and was actually employed by a costume jewelry firm
in Milan called Bozart. And in 2016, Patrizia was released from prison for good behavior, meaning she only served 18 years for orchestrating Maurizio's death. And this is absolutely wild, but as soon as she was
released from prison, a reporter came up to her and
asked her why she had hired someone to kill Maurizio instead
of just doing it herself. And she actually responded and said, my eyesight is not so good.
I did not want to miss. So let's talk about the House
of Gucci movie versus reality. What was different here? I know I mentioned a few
of them along the way. But the major difference was the timeline. The opening scene of the movie
sets the timeline at 1978, but Patrizia and Maurizio
actually met in 1970. Obviously I totally understand
why they pushed it forward. It's a movie, you know, you
gotta do what you gotta do. And I mean, there were a lot
of years in between the meeting and the drama really taking place. So it was a little sped up, but I did think it was interesting that they cut out almost an entire decade. Another thing that was pretty interesting was their portrayal of
Patrizia's family being poor, because they certainly weren't. Yes, like I said, she grew up
poor until she was about 12 when her mother got married
to a very wealthy man. But in the movie for dramatic effect, they made it seem like
Patrizia was very poor when the two of them met. But in reality, she did live
a somewhat luxurious lifestyle when the two of them met and he just took that to the next level. Also, like I said earlier, the movie only includes
two of Guccio's sons, Aldo and Rodolfo. But this is kind of understandable considering the other son didn't really have that much of a role. Like I mentioned earlier, they made it seem like
Aldo only had one son when he actually had three sons and all of them worked for Gucci. Also was a lot of criticism in the movie about how Paolo was portrayed. They basically portray him as a big idiot. When in reality he really wasn't
and the movie kind of made it seem like Paolo mistakenly
sent his father to jail, like he just wanted to spook him. But in reality, that
was fully intentional. Also, like I said earlier, Maurizio and Patrizia had two daughters, only one was included. Allegra
was just completely left out. Also they really skipped over
Mauricio's first relationship, post separation from Patrizia
and jumped right into his second relationship with Paola. But honestly, I think for the most part, they did a pretty good job of showing how the family was
portraying these characters. And I thought the murder itself
was portrayed pretty well and kind of the downfall of Maurizio and how the Gucci family ended up losing all control
of the Gucci business. I think it was pretty well done. And considering it's
almost three-hours long, I understand that they
had to cut some of it out. But there was a lot of
criticism about the movie. So let me know your thoughts
in the comments below. And definitely let me know what you think of the actual story. I found it to be very
fascinating and honestly just sad how these people got so
caught up in the money, and the notoriety that they
let everything else go. I don't really know how much of a true love Patrizia and
Maurizio ever really had, but it does seem like all
of the fame and money really corrupted any relationship
that they did have. But that is it for me today guys. And before I go, I wanted to thank
today's sponsor, Audible, who has been sponsoring my
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it for me today guys. I hope you enjoyed this one
and I'll catch you next time. (soft music)
