House of Gucci: The true story of murder in Lady Gaga's biopic

House of Gucci: The true story of murder in Lady Gaga’s biopic

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The Haus of Gaga has officially collided with the House of Gucci: Lady Gaga ignited our giddiness for her upcoming crime biopic by posting a photo of herself on set apres-ski with co-star Adam Driver in the snow-covered alps on Instagram last week.

The Oscar-winner will play Italian socialite and former Gucci chief adviser Patrizia Reggiani, who was sentenced to 29 years in prison for plotting the assassination of her former husband, heir to the Gucci fashion empire Mauricio Gucci, in 1995.

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Ridley Scott’s film is adapted from Sara G Forden’s widely acclaimed non-fiction book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed (2001), which examines the ascent, collapse and resurrection of the Gucci dynasty following Maurizio Gucci’s murder. It went behind the scenes of the trial to explore Reggiani’s motives for the execution-style murder, and whether she was in fact guilty.

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The trial exploded like a real-life soap opera, captivating the country with scandalous tales of infidelity, extraordinary wealth, vengeance, designer footwear and a certified psychic-turned-accomplice. Reggiani was maligned by an arguably misogynistic press who dubbed her ‘Vedova Nera’, the Black Widow, and painted her as a bitter, greedy, scorned woman who acted out of revenge and spite.

It is not yet known how much of Forden’s book will feature in the film but from recent photos taken on set it looks as though it will focus on the couple’s relationship in the lead up to Gucci’s murder. Here’s what we know about Gucci and Patrizia, Gucci’s assassination and the subsequent trial below.

Who was Maurizio Gucci?

Erin Combs Getty Images

Maurizio Gucci was born in Florence in 1948 to Italian actors Sandra Ravel and Rodolfo Gucci, who was the son of legendary fashion designer Guccio Gucci. He married Reggiani in 1973, but things began to unravel a decade later. As an only child, Maurizio inherited his father’s majority ownership of the business when he died in 1983, and launched an ugly legal battle against his uncle Aldo Gucci for full control of the empire. (This was a prosecution led by then-city prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani, now better known as Trump’s controversial personal attorney.)

Paola Franchi in 2010 Jacopo Raule Getty Images

Gucci spent his own money and the company’s income with such reckless abandon that after repeated losses he was forced to sell his shares to a Bahrain-based investment group, Investcorp, for $120m in 1993.

At the time of his murder, he was living with Paola Franchi, an interior designer he had begun a relationship with while still married, having walked out on his family - including daughters Allegra and Alessandra - 10 years earlier in 1985. He was also attempting to rebuild his reputation as a businessman by investing in a casino in Switzerland.

What happened on the day of Maurizio Gucci’s murder?

On the day of the crime - described as a pleasant spring morning on March 27th, 1995 - Gucci was walking up the steps to his office building of Via Palestro 20 in Milan. The only eye witness, the building’s doorman Giuseppe Onorato, recently recalled to The Guardian: “Mr Gucci arrived carrying some magazines and said good morning. Then I saw a hand. It was a beautiful, clean hand, and it was pointing a gun.”

Gucci was shot three times in the back, and once in the head before he collapsed and died on the steps of his office. Onorato was shot twice in the arm and survived (he’s still owed unpaid compensation from Raggiani).

Raggiani was an immediate suspect as she had publicly broadcast her desire to murder Gucci after their acrimonious split, but without evidence, the case went cold for two years. A tip off led to her arrest in 1997, and the trial began the following year.

Who was Patrizia Reggiani?

Patrizia Reggiani, who was described as the “Liz Taylor of luxury labels” in the 1970s and ’80s, was born in 1948 in a small town outside Milan to a waitress mother and a much older father who made his fortune in trucking.

While the family were not part of Milan high society, they were extremely wealthy. Reggiani met Gucci at a party after networking her way into the upper echelons of Milan’s social circuit, and the couple married in 1973. Reggiani became chief adviser for Gucci, and went on to have two daughters, Alessandra and Allegra.

After 12 years of marriage in 1985, Gucci told Reggiani he was going away on a business trip but he never returned home. He had been living with girlfriend Paola Franchi for five years before he was killed.

When Gucci was forced to sell the business in ‘93 after the empire lost millions under his control, Reggiani was furious at him for selling out.

“I was angry with Maurizio about many, many things at that time,” Reggiani told The Guardian in 2016. “But above all, this. Losing the family business. It was stupid. It was a failure. I was filled with rage, but there was nothing I could do. He shouldn’t have done that to me.”

The trial

As the sensationalised trial unfolded in 1998, it emerged that Reggiani had hired four accomplices to carry out Gucci’s murder - her former friend and psychic Pina Auriemma, who confessed to arranging the hitman; a friend of Auriemma’s who set up the hitman; the hitman; and the getaway driver.

One striking piece of evidence that was discovered at Reggiani’s home was her Cartier diary, which had a one-word entry for the day of Gucci’s murder: “Paradeisos” – the Greek word for paradise.

Reggiani was convicted of ordering his murder and sentenced to 29 years in prison. Her daughters (Alessandra, then aged 21, and Allegra, 17) had argued that her conviction be overturned, claiming her benign brain tumour had altered her behaviour and personality.

Reggiani maintained her innocence throughout, arguing that Auriemma had acted on her own and then blackmailed her. She said in a cross-examination that she was forced to pay Auriemma $365,000 (about £262,000), before adding the puzzling statement: ‘‘It was worth every penny (via The New York Times)."

The hitman who shot Gucci was given a life sentence. Reggiani’s personal astrologer Auriemma, who first contacted the killers, was given 25 years.

Where is Patrizia Reggiani now?

Olycom Spa/Shutterstock

In 2014, Reggiani began a work release program after serving 16 years in prison, which required her getting a job and carrying out volunteer work. Reggiani was hired as a design consultant by Milanese costume jewellery firm Bozart.

Around the same time, Reggiani was badgered by a TV crew of an Italian reality show who asked: “Patrizia, why did you hire a hitman to kill Maurizio Gucci? Why didn’t you shoot him yourself?”

“My eyesight is not so good,” she deadpanned. “I didn’t want to miss.”

That year she also told La Repubblica newspaper that, now she was available again, she hoped to return to the company fold. “They need me,” she said. “I still feel like a Gucci – in fact, the most Gucci of them all.”

House of Gucci is planned for release on November 25th in the US.

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Lady Gaga & Adam Driver Give the World a First Look at Their New Film, House of Gucci

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There is something so seductive about a high fashion crime story, all the more so when Hollywood gets involved. See: the 1997 murder of Gianni Versace, which was serialized into the Emmy-winning Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story starring Edgar Ramirez as the doomed fashion designer and Penelope Cruz as his sister Donatella.

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Another sensational murder from that era—that of Gucci scion Maurizio Gucci by a hitman hired by his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani—is getting the Tinseltown treatment this year. The film, called House of Gucci and based on the 2000 book of the same name by Sara Gay Forden, is directed by Ridley Scott, and stars Lady Gaga and Adam Driver as the couple, along with Al Pacino, Jared Leto, and Jeremy Irons as members of the Gucci family, and Call My Agent!’s Camille Cottin as Maurizio’s girlfriend Paola Franchi.

The movie, due out in November, is currently filming in Milan and the Italian Alps—Lady Gaga shared a behind-the-scenes look with co-star Driver on Instagram, with the caption: “Signore e Signora Gucci.”

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Judging from the photo shared by the star, the fabulous costumes alone would make House of Gucci a must-watch—Gucci CEO Marco Bizzari told WWD that the company gave the production “total creative freedom” and granted access to the house’s archives for wardrobe and props.

The enticing subject matter—betrayal, divorce, murder, a failing dynasty—will also surely help. In 1995, Maurizio Gucci, the former head of the fashion house founded by his grandfather Guccio, was gunned down in the foyer of his Milan office. Eventually, all signs pointed to his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, who was convicted of hiring four accomplices, including her psychic, to help kill Gucci. Dubbed the “Black Widow” by the press at the time, Reggiani was sentenced 29 years in prison (she got out in 2016, after serving 18); the psychic got 25 years and the hired gun received a life sentence. Sometime after her release, Reggiani, who had long maintained her innocence, was asked why she didn’t do the job herself. “My eyesight is not so good,” she said, according to the Guardian. “I didn’t want to miss.”

Maurizio Gucci in 1981. Erin Combs Getty Images

During happier times, Gucci and Reggiani, who wed in 1972, were once an international jet-setting power couple, leading a glamorous life that included homes in New York, Milan, Acapulco, and the Swiss Alps, and that earned Mrs. Maurizio Gucci a nickname: the Liz Taylor of luxury labels. But in 1985, Gucci left his wife for another woman, Paola Franchi, and moved in with her—he told Reggiani that he was going away on a business trip and simply never came back. In 1994, a year before he was killed, their years-long, highly contentious divorce, during which Reggiani allegedly sent death threats to her ex, was finalized.

While the murder was the stunning climax of the Gucci saga, it was hardly the only drama to plague the dynasty. After the death of his father Rodolfo in 1983, Maurizio inherited his majority stake in the company and promptly launched legal proceedings to wrest control away from his relatives, namely his uncle Aldo. Unfortunately, Maurizio’s time at the helm of the family business would be short-lived—after a series of poor financial decisions, he had to sell his stock to a Bahraini investment firm in 1993, losing all family control over the company his grandfather founded in 1921.

Lady Gaga on the set of House of Gucci in the Italian Alps. MEGA Getty Images

Leena Kim Associate Editor Leena Kim is an associate editor at Town & Country, where she writes about travel, weddings, arts, and culture.

Who is Patrizia Reggiani? Socialite ‘Black Widow’ accused of arranging murder of Gucci husband

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This week, the internet lit up with fabulous pictures from the set of House of Gucci showing its stars Adam Driver and Lady Gaga decked out in glamorous 1980s skiwear. Based on the real life murder of the last Gucci scion to run the designer fashion house, Maurizio Gucci, which was organised by his ex-wife, the socialite Patrizia Reggiani, the Ridley Scott film promises to be a thriller. But who is Patrizia, and what happened to her after Gucci’s murder?

Patrizia Reggiani, circa 1980s Ipa / Shutterstock

Although not born into high society, Patrizia revelled in it: from a young age her father bought her mink coats and sports cars, and she managed to ascend the social ladder to rub shoulders with Milan’s movers and shakers, which is how she came to meet Maurizio. The couple were married in 1972 and after some resistance from his family, were eventually accepted into the fold, with the Guccis buying the couple numerous properties, private islands and yachts. In the 1980s, they were one of Italy’s first celebrity couples, driving with a personalised number plate of their portmanteau ‘Mauizia’ and befriending the likes of the Kennedys. So glamorous were the couple that Patrizia was dubbed ‘Lady Gucci’ in the press.

PATRIZIA REGGIANI WITH HER HUSBAND MAURIZIO GUCCI in 1972 Independent Photo Agency Srl / Alamy Stock Photo

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After having two daughters together, Maurizio left Patrizia for another (younger) woman in 1991, reportedly leaving one day and never coming back. The following year, Patrizia suffered a brain tumour, which she had removed. In 1993, Maurizio sold his share in Gucci to Investcorp for $120 million, a move that rankled Patrizia, who had been so involved with the brand throughout their marriage.

Fast-forward two years and Maurizio was dead: gunned down as he entered his office one spring morning. Patrizia was immediately a suspect, but it was not until 31 January 1997 that she would be put arrested and 1998 until she would be convicted of arranging her husband’s death.

Patrizia Reggiani, circa 1980s Ipa / Shutterstock

Reportedly spurred into action due to her sense of mistreatment, it emerged in the trial that Patrizia had hired the gunman and getaway driver to kill Maurizio in order to ensure that he could not marry his new partner, Paola Franchi, and disinherit the couple’s daughters, Allegra and Alessandra. She was caught after one of her accomplices boasted of the murder. The press soon had a new nickname for her: Vedova Nera – the Black Widow.

After she as found guilty, Patrizia was sentenced to 26 years on appeal, and famously turned down her first offer of release in 2011 - because it required her to work. In 2014, she had a change of heart, and took a job at a Milanese costume jewellery called Bozart. On her first day of work, she was caught by paparazzi, who quizzed her, ‘why did you hire a hitman to kill Maurizio Gucci? Why didn’t you shoot him yourself?’ Her response? ‘My eyesight is not so good. I didn’t want to miss.’

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