Fedez in court: 'I have no property. But it's all in the name of his companies

'Nobody loves you when you're down and out', sang John Lennon. In other words: nobody loves you when you're down and out. Federico Leonardo Lucia, a.k.a. Fedez, has certainly been into a different kind of music, but the Lennonian saying sticks better to him this time than a pair of Supreme shoes. In fact, an old deposition of his in court in which he declared himself to have no property and immediately the umpteenth media pillorying of the other half of the Ferragnez began.

'During a trial, I was asked a question by the judge about what movable and immovable property is in my name,' the rapper lent to influencer marketing recounted. "I answered the truth: that I have nothing in my name and therefore I am technically a person with no property in my name because everything is in the name of my family's companies, as is the case for many businessmen and women in this country. If I had said the opposite I would have lied before a judge and committed a crime'. Fedez, speaking to Repubblica online, was referring to a hearing in a libel trial against Codacons in Milan in 2020.

For the artist under contract with Warner Music, articles reporting his response to the judge on that occasion 'give readers the wrong idea by reporting my statement in a completely decontextualised way'. To Codacons, which has asked the Guardia di Finanza to conduct a tax audit, Chiara Ferragni's rapper husband makes it known: 'My companies are available for any possible control by the competent authorities, we have nothing to fear or hide'.

Everything changes very fast in what Guy Debord called the society of the spectacle. In 2020, at the time of the Codacons exposé, Fedez and his wife Chiara Ferragni were somewhat the organic intellectuals of contemporary Italy. Two who made themselves, on social media and/or in the recording studio. Two who are forgiven for everything, even some wasteful late-night parties in a rented supermarket. Two examples to follow: they create jobs, they donate beds to hospitals grappling with the Covid emergency, they are interviewed by Prime Minister Conte to raise awareness about viruses and their surroundings.

A kind of third way between John & Yoko and Totti and Ilary that reached its peak at Sanremo 2023, when Ferragni co-hosted thinking herself free while Fedez in the stalls at the Ariston offered the right and even something else to Rosa Chemical in support of the Lgbt+ cause. Apriti cielo: political polemics to no end, because at Palazzo Chigi in the meantime Meloni arrived and with Giorgia the Ferragnez have never been taken and will never be taken. So it happened that the Ferragni tripped over the Balocco pandoro. Since that precise moment, the narrative around the most beautiful couple in influencer marketing has reached the antipodes, with a corollary of investor companies now almost racing to get away from any affiliation with the brand.