It's the return you don't expect after 15 years of silence. To which are added the years in which, despite wearing the role of first lady, she decided to remain almost always in the shadows, “a step back”, as she repeats several times. Veronica Lario is the surprise guest of the third episode of 'Dinner at Maria Latella', the Sky Tg24 dinner talk. For her, now 67 years old, it is the debut in a TV program as well as the first time he speaks to the public since the painful and very noisy separation from Silvio Berlusconi began in 2009, of which she defined herself, at the time, as 'half of nothing', borrowing the title of Catherine Dunne's novel. That pain still appears alive in the dining room of Latella, her friend for 33 years now and with whom she wrote a book together, 'Tendenza Veronica', in 2004, when she was still Mrs Berlusconi in office .
Then rags have flown, accompanied by disputes, arguments, scandals in the newspapers. And the titles that alluded to money, who described her as a super-billionaire. “In reality – he says in his elegant earth-coloured suit, a bee-shaped brooch pinned to his generous chest – it was none of this, there was a sentence that denied me any rights, which I respected, and today I'm a normal person, an entrepreneur.” At the head of a gaming start-up – Tambù – born from the love for gaming with her children first and then her grandchildren, she who – despite the family business – has always enjoyed watching TV for her offspring: “But gaming is something else what,” he makes clear.
He never gave up playing with them, not even in the darkest months. In which “I went from being 'an ungrateful showgirl' to the Milan court which denied me all my rights. A 10 year leap in which I felt a bit harassed. What was I doing? I suffered: It is difficult to fight against power and the press, especially when the press is bent on power. The only thing I could do was take a few steps back and I learned to take those, perhaps from horseback riding…”, which he talks about in his 15 minutes alone with Latella, after the dinner enjoyed with the other guests of the show , between a lasagna with fish ragù and the millefeuille with fruit and Chantilly which Carlo Calenda, the journalist told the diners, is fond of, 'he wanted two portions…'.
Lario has a past as an actress behind her, a passion put aside after meeting the Cavaliere. Yet her emotion in front of the cameras is palpable, he almost struggles to hide it. Immediately after having ' spilled the beans ' she appears almost relieved, she passes into the room where the agency journalists are gathered to greet and thank them for being there for her. That, for the first time on camera, he talks about the dark years after 2009. “After this truly very complex moment for me was over – she recalls, looking back over the months after the divorce -, I asked myself if it was possible to start again, for my life and for personal choices. At a certain moment I thought that there was nothing left for me, I had been denied a right, I thought 'maybe power has won'. But I told myself I'm not finished and I tried.” To start again, to start again.
Her passion for horses, which she talks about, also helps her. The spark was lit “to follow the grandchildren, but then everyone stopped and I continued”, starting to ride horses “at 55: when someone stopped, I started. It helped me a lot, I used a lot of hippotherapy who helped me a lot in these years of difficult moments in which it was better to close than to open.”
Even today, he struggles to put together the most complicated moments after the divorce. “Pointing to just three moments”, as asked by Latella, “is difficult”, he admits, “it was all a see-saw: on the one hand the hope of reuniting with my family in a balanced way, in other moments I lost hope. I was very close to my children and they were close to me. They were all very beautiful moments – she continues – because I had my family. If I really have to say one less edifying one: I I didn't attend my children's graduations because there were too many of us. And then I took a step back.”
Moreover, he says he has always taken steps backwards. To about, she denies not having loved the role of first lady, which she nevertheless chose to play, often remaining in the shadows: “The characters who have passed through Berlusconi's living rooms have always been of a high level and in some way I have always been fascinated by them, but I never thought of finding my own space within those dynamics. I was there because I respected a role, I tried to do it as best as possible and for me the best also meant taking a step back.”
And to Latella who, repeating words used by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, asks her if she considers herself a woman who cannot be blackmailed, “I have no reason – she replies – because I I don't carry any secrets with me, I have no secrets from Berlusconi's business or his life aside and therefore I can say what I think regardless of my pasta past that has no secrets”. But which still remains cumbersome, and to which he says he gives very little thought: “I I have an ideal window and when I open it in the morning I see the future, then I have one behind me that I don't open muchI always look at the one that shows me the future.”
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