Maria Rosaria Boccia speaks: "Sangiuliano tell the truth, or I will."

Very long interview with Maria Rosaria Boccia, the businesswoman at the center of the scandal that led to the resignation of Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano. Boccia chose to speak with Marianna Aprile and Luca Telese at the program In onda on La7, episode of September 6, aired shortly after the minister’s resignation. Fixed gaze, impassive, impenetrable expression identical throughout the interview, hinted smile, great confidence. This is how she presented herself, and this is how Boccia answered, with the utmost serenity, the questions of Aprile and Telese.

Before the interview, a preview with her comment on Sangiuliano’s resignation: “I’m not happy. He deserved that post: he is a very competent person. In my opinion he is also a good person. He found himself in a situation that he did not know how to handle, and I’m very sorry because he deserved that post. But maybe today after all the media storm we have experienced it was necessary. They could have done it by telling the truth from the beginning, though.”

Then, here comes Boccia’s narrative. Which opens with an ambiguous demand for an apology, although it is not known for what reasons: “I want an apology from the man for me and my family. The minister then has to apologize to the government and to the Italian people, not to me. He put him in the public square, I was neither a political figure nor a show business figure until ten days ago no one knew me and my life was great.” Asked if Boccia is a spy, the Pompeii businesswoman replies, “Absolutely not.” And then the lunge: “If the minister had told the truth from the first moment, I would not be here. I only rectified the minister’s lies, and I continue to do so, unfortunately.” Or is Boccia a PD-led figure? And therefore hostile to the government? This the two journalists ask her. “Absolutely not, I’ve been collaborating in my projects for five years with the center-right and I wholeheartedly voted for Giorgia Meloni, she’s a good woman. I do not know who is directing Minister Sangiuliano, because I am convinced that he is not the one organizing these interventions of his, he is definitely directed by a team. There are many situations that were later discovered to be false, however, no one has apologized to me yet.”

On the issue of institutional visits in which the businesswoman has always accompanied the minister, Boccia’s response was, “I had to adapt to the ministerial method.” And then, again pressed on the subject of this unspecified truth that the minister, according to Boccia, had not yet told, “It’s not that I tell a different story, I refer back to him. I ask the minister to tell the truth, because if you ask me to tell the truth, in this truth there are not only me the minister there are involved so many women that today we are not yet mentioning and then I for duty of truth should mention them, and I don’t feel like it. Let us go no further. I ask the minister to tell the truth about us. I think this whole situation should be extinguished as soon as possible without doing further harm to anyone and without involving people who have not been involved until now.” But what would these other women be? “It’s not respectful to say that and it’s not respectful for the minister to keep saying inaccurate things by widening more and more the circle of lies and of people who could enter this abyss, I don’t want to be thrown in to cover up other things later, I’m not in.” Perhaps former minister Sangiuliano’s wife is involved ? “The problem is always to tell the whole truth and not a distorted truth,” Boccia reiterates. “I was not with the minister when the minister was talking to his wife, also because I never met the lady, and I never heard the minister talking to his wife on the phone. Never. I was able to hear the minister in a conversation at his home with his wife, because he called me, left the phone open without his wife’s knowledge, and I listened to the conversation.” The wife, Boccia says, “was asking to snatch the nomination. So I would like to understand: was the nomination torn up because of a woman’s whim? Was it torn up because I did not have the expertise? It was torn up. And for what reason?”

On the issue of photographs in which Boccia appeared together with the minister, the businesswoman responds as follows, “Everything I publish on my social profiles is always authorized by a person who is in the photo or video with me, I do not allow myself to publish any photo or video, as in this case, without permissions. There was one case where it was very late, I didn’t ask him for permission, so I didn’t post a photo with him of an event in Rome, a private event of mine, and he asked me why I didn’t post the photo, I say look, it seems late to ask you for permission, and he had asked me if it couldn’t be added, so I posted it in the Stories.”

As for the famous issue of the Ray-Ban glasses recordings, Boccia says he only tried them on that occasion, as a joke. “I never recorded the minister,” he says. And he adds that he never recorded any other conversation except the phone call, already published, to the official who had followed her appointment as the minister’s adviser for major events. Perhaps she did all this to get work? “I don’t need money, I have a very prosperous job,” said Boccia, who added, “My family doesn’t need offices and accommodations, my friends all have fulfilling jobs, so no, I don’t need any of it, the minister knows that very well.”

And as for whether Boccia downloaded all the historical WhatsApp from Sangiuliano’s cell phone (which she admits to having had access to, however, on occasions when the minister, having to speak on public occasions, would have entrusted it to her), the Pompeii businesswoman denies the possibility. “I keep saying that all these people have so much imagination. I never had a computer, when the minister was there (you can also see from the photos and videos) I had the trolley with my personal clothes and the bag with my cell phone. I never carried the ipad, the computer.” Although he alludes to a computer, he still says he never downloaded the minister’s WhatsApp messages to any other device. And she also denies the idea that there may be, as leaked in recent hours by some newspapers, a photo shoot in which she and Sangiuliano leave a doctor’s office hand in hand. Also debunked is the idea that Boccia may be pregnant by the former minister.

Then again, on the subject of an apology and the truth:“I think a public apology is in order, since by now I think more people know us even beyond the of our nation. Either tell the truth, or I will be forced to tell it, however, then many other women would fall into the story.” Later, Boccia reaffirmed that she never recorded anyone. Marianna Aprile then asked her how she will eventually prove what she will say or be forced to say by the minister’s ’lies’. “I have listened to phone calls, I have read messages,” Boccia replies. “I can say that. Then there are details that could help the reconstruction. Details that I know. There are then also messages from the minister.” Finally, Boccia also mentions the issue of the minister’s possible blackmail, hinting that Sangiuliano was allegedly blackmailed by the editor of a weekly magazine: there would be editors who would buy photos that the minister did not like to have come out. On the issue, Boccia responded, “The minister received an email saying that there were those photos and we are not publishing them. To me that’s a kind of blackmail, isn’t it?”

Maria Rosaria Boccia speaks: "Sangiuliano tell the truth, or I will."

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.