Singer Andrea Bocelli. – LM / Daniele Cifalˆ / IPA / I / SIPA
Difficult to follow Andrea Bocelli. Contaminated by a mild form of Covid-19 last May, the singer then declared to have lived a “nightmare”, adding that this “tragedy” had infected his whole family. But two months later, the tenor now holds a whole different story.
Last Monday, during a congress around the pandemic organized in Rome, Andrea Bocelli questioned the “seriousness” of the virus, specifying not to have “known someone under intensive therapy”, report several media, whose Le Figaro. The singer also explained that he was “offended” by the containment measures in Italy.
“I am not a negationist, I am an optimist”
“There were times when, I say by detaching myself from any political side, I felt humiliated and offended. When I heard that I was being deprived of my freedom to leave my home without having committed a crime, I was offended. I want to publicly confess that I have sometimes voluntarily disobeyed this ban because I did not find it right, or even beneficial, to stay at home, ”he said. Surprising remarks from the one who in April gave a concert at the Duomo in Milan, thought of as “a prayer” in the face of the coronavirus. And this verbal outing was quick to shock many Italians, whose country has been bereaved by more than 35,000 deaths linked to the virus.
On Twitter, rapper Fedez, who had organized a live concert during confinement in collaboration with Andrea Bocelli, invited the singer to be silent. “If you don’t know anyone who has been in intensive therapy and you allow yourself to doubt that the pandemic could be science fiction, I present to you one of my friends, who, because of the Covid, has underwent a lung transplant at 18, ”he wrote.
Se non conoscete nessuno che sia stato in terapia intensiva e vi allowete di instillare il dubbio che la pandemia sia stata fantascienza vi presento un mio amico che causa Covid ha dovuto suffer a trapianto di polmoni at 18 years old. Poi fare silenzio ogni tanto non fa male eh pic.twitter.com/v5px9Pfosw
– Fedez (@Fedez) July 27, 2020
Faced with the controversy, Andrea Bocelli replied “to have been misunderstood”. “I am not a negationist, I am an optimist and I leave from there, with a prayer”, he added.