Antonia Dell’Atte answers the phone twice in 12 hours. The first occurred in the late afternoon of this Wednesday, when it became known that Mediaset had decided to do without Alessandro Lecquio after the interview of the former model and host on EL PAÍS on 12 October, in which she had recounted the violence suffered by the talk show host during the three years in which she was married to him between the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. That conversation lasted about two minutes, she was crying, “for joy, huh? for a little peace,” she said. And he recalled that there were “many years in which he endured, seeing and hearing everyone who said: ‘Antonia is crazy, she is just a woman despised'”.
The second was this Thursday morning. She cried again, several times, for about an hour: “I’m crying. I’m crying, why did I have to spend 35 years with these wounds, watching Lecquio every time he appeared on television attacking other women? Saying that I was lying, silencing his own abuse and trying to silence me. Every time I saw him talk about other women, all the memories of what I had suffered opened up, and all this with the complicity of those who have been sitting next to him all these years.”
For Dell’Atte, Mediaset’s decision meant “a historic change”, for her “certainly”, but also television: “So many years so much press that is not press but rubbish. My testimony is not only against those who directly exercised violence against me, Lecquio, but against those who are complicit in it. Those programs that manipulated a truth that everyone knew. I hope that rubbish journalism ends. That they cannot make money by judging women, lying about them, masking sexist violence”.
She also says that this is not her triumph: “It is the victory of the truth. And it is also that of all women. I think of those who have been murdered and who have never had a loudspeaker to report, have never been able to see compensation. When I still hear someone say that if a man has not been convicted, he is not a rapist… Women know that many times we cannot prove abuse, we cannot go to court, that is why our voice is so important, to be able to tell it. This is for them.”
And say thank you. “To the new management from 2023 of Mediaset, to the new CEO in Spain, Alessandro Salem, for having made a decision to which they were committed, for having kept their word and for what it means for many other women”. Dell’Atte refers to what happened in the last month, since he gave that interview to EL PAÍS which immediately pushed Mediaset to take action to see how to proceed.
“But why did it take so long,” says Dell’Atte. It’s not about the current management of Mediaset, but about “many years in which the talk show people, colleagues, program directors, Ana Rosa Quintana, knew perfectly well the same thing that all those documents tell us, and they did nothing”.
“They called me a liar, there was an absolute, sepulchral silence, in which they were forbidden to talk about what I had told them, about Lecquio. I have no feeling of revenge, but I have a deep pain for all that press that contributed to bringing me down, to destroying my image, my credibility”, he adds.
And now? “I would like those who have not yet done so to apologize for having covered up a molester and for having profited from what he passed off as scandals, but many things are also violence.” This, she continues, “could help so that many other women are not afraid to tell what they have suffered. I would like them all to come out and do it, to tell the story, and for this system that exists, which continues despite Lecquio’s dismissal, to end”.
And he also talks about him: “A few words would be enough, which he has never uttered, a ‘sorry’, a ‘I am against violence against women’. That he would admit his mistakes and be able to be a spokesperson against that violence that he himself exercised after recognizing and accepting it. And that he apologize to my son, to Clemente, who also had to see and hear all this for many years”.
When he says goodbye he says he can “leave this world with the peace of mind that the truth has been recognized, that the truth is known.” And after an hour he needs to “breathe” again: “Because every time I do this, I count, I remember everything that happened and what all these years of humiliation were like, I need to catch my breath. I suffocate a little.”
The 016 telephone line assists victims of sexist violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number is not recorded on the phone bill, but the call must be canceled from the device. You can also contact via email 016-online@igualdad.gob.es and via WhatsApp on 600 000 016. Minors can contact the ANAR Foundation telephone number 900 20 20 10. In case of emergency it is possible to call 112 or the telephone numbers of the State Police (091) and the Civil Guard (062). And if you can’t call you can use the ALERTCOPS application, from which an alert signal is sent to the Police with geolocation.
