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The Gucci have re-entered popular culture thanks to Ridley Scott's House of Gucci, an over-the-top reenactment of the saga of the Italian luxury fashion dynasty, with Lady Gaga in the role of Patrizia Reggiani.
Reggiani was the wife of Maurizio Gucci, the last Gucci to have looked after the family's fashion empire before other investors took over. Patrizia and Maurizio met at a party in 1970 and got married two years later, welcoming daughters Alessandra and Allegra in 1977 and 1981, respectively.
Reggiani shocked Italy when she was accused of and later convicted for having hired a hitman to take out Maurizio in March 1995, one year after he had divorced her. The socialite's relationship with her two daughters was deeply affected by her crime, despite Reggiani claiming she was innocent and Alessandra and Allegra believing Patrizia's brain tumor had had an influence on her actions.
How Is The Relationship Between Patrizia Reggiani And Her Two Daughters?
Reggiani and her two daughters have had a complicated relationship ever since she was convicted in a heavily publicized trial in 1998. Originally sentenced to 29 years, she was released on good behavior after serving 18 years in 2016.
While their mother served her sentence, Alessandra and Allegra visited her weekly, as Allegra told Vanity Fair in 2022: "Every Wednesday and Friday that God created, divided between my sister and me."
She added: "My mother has many defects but a great virtue too: an incredible spirit of survival. In prison, she kept two ferrets; she remained active and generous. Every week we brought her a package with clothes, sheets, and food—dishes cooked by Grandmother Silvana, her mother, and other peckish whims. They were very long years, of sacrifices, of profound pain. Everyone talks about who is in prison but not about the relatives who queue for hours amid desperation, changing their lives to fit the rhythms of detention."
However, this seems to no longer be the case now that Reggiani is a free woman.
"We are going through a bad time now," she told The Guardian in 2016. "[My daughters] don't understand me and have cut off my financial support. I have nothing, and I haven't even met my two grandsons."
The two sisters have relocated to Switzerland and are both married and have children. Meanwhile, Reggiani is now employed at Milan jewelry shop Bozart, where she serves as a design consultant.
Allegra Gucci's Memories About Patrizia Reggiani
In March 2022, Allegra Gucci published a memoir titled "Game Over" about her own experience growing up in the Gucci family and her memories of her father's passing.
In an interview about her book, Allegra shared insights into her relationship with her mother Patrizia.
"As a child, she had a way of loving me that was enough for me. It wasn't easy raising two daughters alone. And for this, I thank her. She was there, her love, her whimsy. There were faults, pros, cons… But the situation really started to change in 1992," Allegra said, hinting at her mother's brain tumor, in her memoir.
Initially thought to be malignant, the mandarin-sized mass was surgically removed from Patrizia's frontal lobe. Though it was later revealed to be benign, Allegra was convinced the tumor and the operation had an impact on her mother's personality.
"From that moment on, she was never the same. We could see this from small things: She loved playing cards and reading, and suddenly she could no longer concentrate on cards or read a line. I am convinced that the operation affected her behavior. And that it continues to influence it today," Allegra said in her memoir.
Allegra Gucci On The Morning Her Father Passed Away
In March 1995, Gucci was gunned down by a hitman on the steps outside his office as he was going to work. At the time of his death, he was in a relationship with former model and interior designer Paola Franchi, according to People.
As Allegra recalled, Patrizia was the one who told her daughters their father had been murdered.
"I was in my room; I didn't sleep well that night. My mother, Patrizia Reggiani, entered the room and told me that my father was [deceased]. I was 14 then, and I remember crouching down on the floor and looking out the window overlooking Piazza San Babila. Below, the yellow taxis and people kept moving. But I was as still as if I were in a bubble and my life had stopped," she said.
Speaking about the bond she and her sister Alessandra share with their mother, Allegra said they both believed Reggiani was innocent. Allegra even studied to become a lawyer to campaign for a retrial, claiming Patrizia's brain tumor was responsible for her conduct, according to Us Weekly.
"It has been difficult. But I really believed that sooner or later it would end, that justice would come, that the truth would come out," Allegra said.
"My sister and I have fought all these years because we have always believed in our mother's innocence, only to always discover from television and then from her half-sentences that this was not the case."
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