“After the suicide of the restaurateur from Lodi, everything was said to me and Selvaggia, from every channel,” says the food blogger and Lucarelli’s partner
Lorenzo Biagiarelli returns to speak on social media after weeks of silence following the case of the Lodi restaurateur who took her own life: “I have to tell for the first and last time what happened to me last month, in order to close this case.” A story that is sad no matter how you look at it. Thank you to everyone who wants to listen and also to everyone who has been close to me with a thought or a kind word.”
“I cannot and do not want to apologize for the death of Giovanna Pedretti: if I did, I would be one of those who used her death to my advantage to rehabilitate myself. And I don’t return to the program on Rai 1 at 12 noon: the conditions are not there,” he says in the long video published on Instagram.
And in the video he reconstructs step by step what has happened since January 12th, the day the story of the review published by the restaurateur broke. When the story is now in the public domain and reported in newspapers, he explains, he decides to investigate the incident, which he describes as “news with uncertain veracity”: “I see the review, it seems to be false.” I and I write it, but we are careful to censor the name of the pizzeria, that of the owner and even the location – continues Biagiarelli –. Because the purpose of exposure is not to deny or publicly ridicule an ordinary person, as has often been written in recent days. “But it means dissecting a news story, especially when it is broadcast nationally, and criticizing the work of the press when it feeds on unverified news and monetizes it with clicks on articles that can easily provoke outrage.” Then , he continues, “a few things happen the next day in no particular order”: the police call in the owner of the pizzeria in Lodi to help find the author of the review, but she – says the food blogger in Video – is unable to do this. “Then she was questioned by a news program and a journalist from a national newspaper, to whom she reiterated that this review was absolutely true and that in relation to my contribution and the sharing of Selvaggia, I never expected that it would provoke such vitriol – drives Biagiarelli continues in a long video on social media -. Since I am being called a liar and a villain in the national press for no reason, I called the owner to hear her version and give her the right to respond or even retract it if it turned out my work was wrong. However, this was not the case and I would like to clarify that the phone call had a cordial tone and that the lady repeated several times that she had gone to the police station in the afternoon to talk about these events.
“I was heavily criticized for this phone call,” the food blogger adds, “but Article 21 of the Constitution grants every citizen freedom of speech.” I remind you that the exposure in the case of the commuter janitor was carried out by a private citizen.” Then it became known that the restaurateur from Lodi had taken her own life, and from that moment, explains Biagiarelli, “both Selvaggia and I received death threats, we were inundated with hateful messages from the press, radio and television, immediately and for …” For two weeks they claimed that our actions were directly responsible for the pizzeria owner’s suicide. The accusation, Biagiarelli continued, was to have set up a “social pillory against the lady and her pizzeria”. “One of the many untruths that have been told about this story, as it even had to hire a communications agency called Arcadia to look for traces of this social pillory.” And incredibly, there are none. No trace of this mountain of hatred towards the owner of Veri, which instead had a positive sentiment of 90%, practically a referendum. And I myself could see that there were no insults on his page, at most a dozen skeptical comments. “There was no migration of followers from my profile or that of Selvaggia to the restaurant page,” states the food blogger.
“Everything was said to me and Selvaggia, from every channel.” And then the video shows excerpts from television and radio shows, social media interventions, posts, articles in which we hear interventions from people criticizing their stance.
And then, continues Biagiarelli, although other professionals have also investigated and directly questioned the restaurateur, “the notorious stigma of incitement to suicide is reserved only for me and my partner, although it has been found that this social pillory does not exist towards the restaurateur is.” The food blogger's speech approaches its conclusion: “There are different reasons and different instigators behind this media pillory.” But that's not the point, also because neither Selvaggia nor I ever focus on the discussion about suicide let in and in some way rejected every invitation from the press, from television, which came even as we continued to talk about it on television, about the life and mind of this lady with the presumption of knowing what was going through her head. The story of a suicide was analyzed by everyone in some way, often contradicting what the World Health Organization reported on the matter. There are ways you can and cannot talk about suicide. Things that can be said, things that cannot be said. And while we were accused of doing something that couldn't be done, everyone, actors, dancers, models and not journalists, were there to discuss something that, by the same reasoning, should concern most investigators and psychologists.
Biagiarelli returns to the traditional press and cites some cases that have caused debate in the weeks following the restaurateur's case and which, in his opinion, indicate misconduct, such as that of the woman who left her son in the hospital (the Pictures have been published by some news programs and newspapers). “I could go on like this. But I won't do it, I just want to make a small personal reflection that many have accused me of being a lack of humanity, but I cannot and do not want to apologize for the death, as many have warmly suggested to me, of Giovanna Pedretti, whose suicide obviously hurts me as a human being. Because if I did, I would be one more person using his death to his own advantage, in my case to rehabilitate myself, scattering ashes on my head and begging for mercy in the public square. I prefer to keep the stigma, the doubt, the suspicion rather than trying the path of pity and confirming something I don't think. And I will calmly accept all the consequences of this choice. I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the conditions for resuming my role in È semper giorno! Unfortunately, these are no longer available and you will therefore no longer see me on air. However, I would like to thank everyone who never stopped showing me affection and there were many, because although the attempt to destroy me was almost a success, I almost cling to it and to the solidarity of the many who understood , what a “That was a dirty game He played.”
Social media posts
Lorenzo Biagiarelli published the first post about the story on January 12th: In the gallery, the food blogger said that the review he was talking about was false and justified his statement with details that did not fit into the story (the font of the review, writing, letters, etc.). The following day, January 13, he explains that he called the owner of the pizzeria to “ask her for explanations.” On the evening of January 14th, news came that the restaurateur Giovanna Pedretti had been found dead: suicide, according to the investigation. The following day, Biagiarelli does not appear, as usual, on Antonella Clerici's program broadcast on Rai1. The presenter explained her absence as follows: “This morning Lorenzo is not with us, who, as you know, was involved in the news report and has decided to stay at home and will be with us in the next few days.” On social media wrote the food blogger: “I am very sorry for the death of Ms. Giovanna and my thoughts are with her family.” I'm sorry that you think that the search for the truth can have these consequences. I would like to vigorously reject the accusations of “social hatred” and “shitstorm”, since Ms. Giovanna has received nothing but praise and expressions of recognition from the press in these two days and only a few poor and tiring attempts to rehabilitate her – establish the truth , which doesn't have the same power anyway and never would have had. I only invite you to reflect on the concept of truth if you truly believe that Ms. Giovanna took her life out of non-existent “social hatred.” If everyone trying to restore truth to a story, big or small, feared this epilogue, at this point we would have to shut down everything, newspapers and social media. In the following weeks, Biagiarelli never returned to the Giovanna Pedretti affair, but continued to publish occasionally, speaking about the Pasta Rummo controversy after Matteo Salvini's visit to the pasta factory, the recipes he tried at home, the monologue from Sanremo and Teresa Mannino about the tractor protest. Until today, when he decided to return to the history of the restaurateur.
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February 15, 2024 (modified February 15, 2024 | 10:35)
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