DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF GUCCI
Socialite Patrizia Reggiani shocked the world when she ordered a hit on her fashion boss ex-husband
When police arrived at her Milan apartment on January 31, 1987, Patrizia Reggiani knew immediately why they were there.
It had been almost two years since her ex-husband and onetime head of the Gucci fashion house, Maurizio Gucci, was shot in the foyer of his office. The building’s doorman cradled the Italian businessman as he died.
Meanwhile, the hitman disappeared into rush hour traffic and evaded Italian police until a tip-off uncovered a murder plot involving Reggiani, her psychic, a porter and a debt-ridden pizzeria owner.
Now the shocking murder case is being retold in a big-budget Hollywood movie, set to be released later this year with Lady Gaga starring as Reggiani and Adam Driver as the ill-fated Maurizio.
The romance that ended with Maurizio dead at the age of 46 and Reggiani jailed for arranging his killing had a fairytale beginning. They met at a high-society soiree when he asked a friend, “Who is that beautiful girl dressed in red who looks like Elizabeth Taylor?”
Reggiani was less impressed by her future husband. “He fell madly in love with me. I was exciting and different. I didn’t think much of him at first. He was just the quiet boy whose teeth crossed over at the front,” she later remembered.
The couple married and had two daughters, Allegra and Alessandra. They lived in opulent luxury with homes in Milan, St Moritz, Acapulco and New York, and partied with the international jetset including the Kennedys and Trumps.
But by 1985, their marriage was over and their ensuing divorce was a long, bitter battle.
Reggiani famously dismissed the initial settlement offer from Maurizio’s lawyers as a “plate of lentils” and was also furious that her ex was living with a younger woman, Paola Franchi, who he planned to marry.
ENRAGED
In 1993 Maurizio sold the family business and pocketed around $200 million, enraging Reggiani who felt her ex should have done more to keep the brand which she helped build.
After their split, she was open in her loathing of Maurizio and even talked about wanting him dead. During her trial, prosecutors played a phone message she once left for her ex-husband. “You are a deformed outgrowth, you are a painful appendix that all of us want to forget... For you, hell is yet to come,” she fumed.
Ultimately, that hell was Maurizio’s murder on March 27, 1995, a day Reggiani marked in her diary with just one word: “Paradeisos” – Greek for paradise.
It was later revealed that Reggiani’s friend and psychic, Pina Auriemma, acted as a go-between and recruited hotel night porter Ivano Savioni, who in turn hired down-on-his-luck pizzeria owner Benedetto Ceraulo to shoot Maurizio. Orazio Cicala was picked to drive the getaway car.
The then 49-year-old socialite was sentenced to 29 years for plotting her husband’s murder while her accomplices also received lengthy jail terms.
In 2011 she declined the opportunity to leave prison as finding a job was a condition of her probation.
“I’ve never worked in my life and I’m certainly not going to start now,” she said.
Even so, after her 2016 release, Reggiani worked as a design consultant for an Italian jewellery business. In 2017 she was granted an annuity of $1.6 million from the Gucci estate as well as millions in back payment related to her divorce, although her daughters appealed the decision.
Last week the woman dubbed the Black Widow during her trial finally explained why she ordered a hit on her ex-husband. Talking to Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, she revealed, “I didn’t hate Maurizio, I never hated him. It was my irritation – he irritated me.”
‘I never hated him. It was my irritation – he irritated me’