Italian singer defends song about gay man becoming straight, but says it ruined his career
MILAN, Italy, – Famed Italian singer Giuseppe Povia says the persecution he has suffered from homosexuals and their allies in the entertainment business following his controversial 2009 song “Luca era gay” (Luca was gay), about a man who converts from the gay lifestyle to heterosexuality, has ruined his career.
In his most recent blog entry, Povia says that since he won second prize for the song at Italy’s Sanremo festival, “Gay associations in many provinces have repeatedly invited me to apologize to the gay community,” and he has found it difficult to find work because of a whispering campaign against him by homosexuals.
Italian singer Giuseppe Povia
“Apologize for what? For singing a song? A true story?” asks Povia, adding that he “wants to apologize for not realizing we live in a violent media, psychological, artistic and cultural dictatorship.”
“Wherever I present myself … there’s always prejudice,” continued the singer. “Povia is evil, he’s against gay people and therefore must die. ... It’s not possible ... there’s a cultural anesthesia and there’s nothing worse than to anesthetize the minds of human beings convincing them that they will become ‘the new thinkers.’”
“The only positive thing,” he explained, “is that the majority of people (90%) are on my side.” He laments however, that this majority “is sadly silent” but “silence doesn’t change a thing.”
The song tells the true story of a man who lived the homosexual lifestyle for 20 years and is now married with children. He shared his story with Povia on a train ride from Milan to Rome in 2004, asking him to write a song about it.
“Massimilano told me that he had been a gay activist for 20 years,” explains the singer. “He told me the details of his participation in the Gay Pride [parades] around the world.”
The man also told the singer how he “earned tons of money” and had “very influential” and “political” friends. “I was the type that gays like,” he said.
“He told me that if I wrote a song about his story, one day, many people would tell me, out of dishonesty, or misinformation, or ignorance about the subject, that it was impossible for a gay [person] to change,” wrote Povia.
The man then told the singer to “not believe any of that and continue my way and defend that story with my own teeth.”
“I couldn’t have imagined that that song would be the end of my career,” wrote Povia.
The song’s first line, which is also the chorus, says: "Luca was gay but now he’s with her. When Luca speaks, he holds his heart in his hand. Luca says: Today I am a different man." (To view the song’s lyrics in English, click here.)
Paolo Bonolis, the artistic director and presenter of Sanremo Festival in 2009, said the song does not "take sides" but just "told a story."
International media, however, heavily criticized “Luca was gay.”
The Spanish news service Publico even said it was a “reconverted homosexual” who sang it, and that it claimed that homosexuals could be cured.
LeMonde called the song “sulfurous” as it implied “homosexuality is a disease.”
The Italian homosexualist group Arcigay, denounced Povia at the time for promoting “homophobia.
