For 34 years, from when Antonia dell’Atte reported until last Tuesday, the story of Alessandro Lecquio has been told on television as scandals and barbecue fillers, but never as a case of sexist violence. He lived with a protective silence around him, she lived without the abuse she suffered being taken seriously. On Sunday 12 October, EL PAÍS published an interview with Dell’Atte in which she told how Lecquio had mistreated her during the three years she had been married to him. At that moment a crack opened in Mediaset, which after a month ended up firing one of its top collaborators. A movement that was unthinkable not long ago and could set a precedent for the recognition of sexist violence within popular culture.
And a precedent that also occurred with the “resistance” that various sources indicate on the part of Ana Rosa Quintana. “I’m crying. Why did I have to spend 35 years watching Lecquio on television while he attacked other women?” Dell’Atte asked himself last Thursday. This is the story of how a historic dismissal occurred, unprecedented in the history of Spanish television.
It all began with that interview with this newspaper, although it was not the first time that the former model and presenter referred to the violence exercised on her by the talk show host of the network belonging to that company, Telecinco. But sources in the area say that “the weight of such a newspaper is what it is, they couldn’t do anything, it represents a crisis”. The company was immediately activated. Also the production company, Unicorn Content, owned by Ana Rosa Quintana and the one that makes the program. We seewhere Lecquio was a collaborator.
Different versions
Versions from that point on differ depending on the sources. Yes, there is a reality that this newspaper was able to verify, and that is that from the first moment there was contact between Dell’Atte’s lawyer and Mediaset in which the Italian company expressed its willingness to act in response to the former model’s testimony. Just three days later there was a first “long” meeting in which the lawyer was able to illustrate the entire chronology of the judicial case surrounding Lecquio and Dell’Atte, helping Mediaset to understand the matter in detail.
In that meeting the agreement between Dell’Atte’s lawyer and Mediaset was that he would hand over all the documentation so that they could corroborate each of the issues. Sources close to the negotiation state that “from the beginning” there were no doubts about “not even a second of Antonia Dell’Atte’s testimony” and that the question of viewing the documents was “a check” that, as a company, Mediaset must do “before making a decision”.
These documents were the first complaint she filed against him, in March 1991, “for physical and mental abuse”, among other things, and which she later withdrew because, let’s remember, it was 1991, she was alone in Spain and no one knew her. And then the case that Lecquio opened against her in January 2004 for defamation, after she had called him an “aggressor” in public, on several programs.
Dell’Atte didn’t lie
He prepared his defense with the lawyer Cristina Almeida. And he won. The order of the court number 35 of Madrid of July of the same year states that “veritatis exception “is deemed sufficient” to dismiss the case; that is, that Dell’Atte’s statement and the evidence provided at that trial were sufficient to demonstrate that she had not lied in describing him as an abuser. He appealed and subsequently the Provincial Court of Madrid once again ratified what the court had established.
All the documentation on these topics was what the Mediaset company requested. But then there was Ana Rosa Quintana’s Unicorn production company. She is a very close friend of Lecquio, godmother of his daughter and a person who “covered up the abuse he suffered and protected him”, Antonia Dell’Atte recalled by phone this Thursday.
That production company, with which this newspaper made contact and did not want to answer any questions, met on Monday the 13th, the day after the publication of the interview with the former model and Armani’s muse, with the collaborators of all the programmes, in the morning and in the afternoon, “to ask them not to talk”, say people close to that environment: who do not allude to Lecquio, who do not answer the questions about the interview and who do not refer to the violence that Dell’Atte had described in detail. For some of those people this meant nothing more than “what it always was, silence to protect him.”
Other sources assure, however, that the motivation was different and that Mediaset and the production company decided, jointly, not to talk about the topic, but not to protect Lecquio “but to protect Dell’Atte”, because, the same sources explain, that Mediaset “did not consider it right” that he, a collaborator on a programme, could speak every day on that set without Dell’Atte being present to respond. They believe that, in the end, “whoever has a daily speaker ends up winning”, they say, referring to Lecquio, and “Mediaset preferred that this topic stop being treated as mere news content when it is not”.
And finally there are other sources who believe that both things happened, that “Mediaset wanted to act with caution regarding this matter and not turn it into a circus”, which at the same time “was good for Ana Rosa (Quintana) because in this way she could continue to protect her friend”, and that the drop in ratings also had something to do with it.
In any case, that same Monday, October 13, Lecquio sat down again We see and focuses briefly on the interview: “I have referred Antonia Dell’Atte’s statements to my lawyer for the relevant legal treatment”. Afterwards the set fell silent. Nobody said anything. And then Lecquió added: “Everything has already been said. Whoever has to solve the rest.” This Thursday, after her exit from the network, neither Ana Rosa Quintana nor any talk show host referred to the issue on Telecinco.
Lecquio continued to collaborate
Until his expulsion from the network, Lecquio continued to collaborate on the program and be the subject of talk shows on other television programmes. In his, without touching on the topic of sexist violence exercised against Dell’Atte. For the rest, without really touching it with the perspective it requires from a professional point of view.
To the question of why Lecquio was not immediately fired, or fired temporarily while they made a decision, there is no answer beyond the fact that the companies requested to see that documentation of which there are several sources who assure that “at the very least, Ana Rosa Quintana was perfectly aware”, both of all the sexist episodes and of the judicial movements that had existed. But they agree that in that world “no one expected him to do anything until he was on the ropes.”
In all these weeks, while Mediaset had many other contacts, by telephone, with Dell’Atte’s lawyer, to be informed of the ongoing attempts, several rumors state that Quintana “resisted” to accept any decision that would entail Lecquio’s dismissal, even though he “was aware” that that moment would come.
Last Tuesday the lawyer obtained the missing document and sent it to Mediaset, which examined it and organised, in less than 24 hours, a meeting with Unicorn to present the documents and agree on Lecquio’s dismissal. The meeting took place this Wednesday afternoon, “very quickly,” say sources close to the meeting, and “100% consensual.”
Very quick and consensual, because with the documents in front of us “there was no way the decision could not be made to fire him.” At half past six this Wednesday Lecquio, after more than three decades, was already out of Telecinco.
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.
