THE BLACK WIDOW
As Lady Gaga takes on the role of Patrizia Reggiani for the big screen, we look at how a marriage break-up led to murder…
It was the scandal – and sensation – of the Nineties. A glamorous socialite put on trial for hiring a man to assassinate her ex-husband. An exhusband who just happened to be Maurizio Gucci, of the famous fashion dynasty.
It is, therefore, little wonder that Ridley Scott has decided to focus his latest murder biopic on the shocking story of Patrizia Reggiani. Lady Gaga and Adam Driver are playing the infamous couple, the outlandish singer perfect for the even-more-outlandish tale.
Patrizia Reggiani had not been born into high society, so when she managed to climb the social ladder and married Maurizio in 1972, she perhaps revelled in their luxurious lifestyle all the more because of its novelty.
As the Gucci family bought the couple private islands, properties and yachts, the pair became one of the first celebrity couples. The media named her Lady Gucci. ‘I’d rather cry in a Rolls than be happy on a bicycle,’ she once famously declared. Therefore, after 12 years of marriage and two daughters, Allegra and Alessandra, on 2 May 1985, when Maurizio told her he was going on a short business trip and never returned home, it must have hit Reggiani hard.
Not only was her marriage over but so was the extravagant existence she’d loved so much.
Of course, she wasn’t going to be left penniless. When the couple officially divorced in 1991, it was agreed that Reggiani would collect the equivalent of $500,000 (almost £400,000, nearly £1m in today’s terms) in annual alimony.
But it was nothing compared to what she was used to.
And when Maurizio sold Gucci to Investcorp in 1993 for $120m, Reggiani was driven to take appalling action. On 27 March 1995, Maurizio was shot and killed by a hitman outside his office.
Suspicion immediately fell on Reggiani but it wasn’t until January 1997 that she was arrested, after Pina Auriemma, her confidante and clairvoyant, told the police that she was behind it.
She’d paid Benedetto Ceraulo, a debt-ridden pizzeria owner around £240,000 to kill Maurizio and thereby stopping him from marrying his new partner, Paola Franchi, and potentially disinheriting their daughters.
In 1998, her trial was a worldwide sensation, as she arrived at court wearing head-to-toe Gucci – of course! The media renamed her The Black Widow. When asked why she didn’t kill Maurizio herself, she simply answered, ‘My eyesight is not so good, I didn’t want to miss.’
She was initially sentenced to 29 years in prison and this was reduced in 2000 to 26 years. In October 2011, she was offered open prison but turned it down with a scornful, ‘I have never worked in my life and I’m certainly not going to start now.’
After 18 years, she had less of a sticky end than she perhaps deserved when, in October 2016, she was released from prison and, the year after, was granted an annuity of £900,000, as well as a back payment of over £16m. So maybe crime does pay after all…