He owes his life to an infection. Because of this, Giancarlo Magalli discovered that he had lymphoma, for which doctors had given him two months to live, but which he was now able to defeat after 18 months of treatment. “The illness surprised me and was unexpected,” confessed the presenter, guest of Mara Venier on “Domenica In”. Then one into the other, a kind of matryoshka. The serious illness that put me at risk was lymphoma. They gave me two months to live, but also told me that lymphoma had a 90% chance of being cured. The lymph node was discovered because I got an infection, from misfortune a fortune was born. The last year and a half has passed between treatments, hospital stays and chemotherapy.
The help of the family
Magalli was married twice and had two daughters. He spoke about how his double family mobilized to help him during these very complicated final months. “My ex-wives took turns at my bedside. They gave me medication for the infection, I don’t know what it was, I think hallucinogenic mushrooms, I had visions, I saw people walking around the room, I was completely beside myself. I also did things like rip out my IV and the doctors said, “Either we tie him up or someone has to look after him, but we don’t have any staff.” One night there was my first wife, one night my second, then mine first daughter, the second… and they made sure I didn’t act crazy. This closeness moved me.” Because of his illness he had to leave “I Fatti Vostri” and now, at 78 years old, he has to start all over again (“I got sick, I left some programs and I didn’t find one that suited me went better”), despite a long career spent both behind and in front of the camera.
My friend Boncompagni
“I worked with many, I tried to line up the names and there were two sides.” Gianni Boncompagni was a fundamental person in my life and in my work. We were friends all our lives, he had an irony, a genius, an inventiveness, he was an extraordinary person. “We did a lot of shows, almost all of them successful,” admitted Magalli, who owed his debut as a presenter to his lifelong friend, who died in 2017. «I was the author of “Pronto, Raffaella?” and I was always the author of “Hello, who’s playing?” with Enrica Bonaccorti. During the program, Enrica became pregnant, suffered a complication and had to be hospitalized. Gianni called me, I was in the kitchen, he rang the phone and said: “You’ll be on the air tomorrow”.