Vanity Fair Interview: Italian Pop Singer Tiziano Ferro Declares He Is Gay & Wants A Relationship.
VANITY FAIR – Tiziano Ferro “I want to fall in love with a man”
TEN YEARS AND NEVER A LOVE
Interview by Enrica Brocardo. Photography by Julian Broad. Edited by Barbara Bartolini.
While the world adored TIZIANO FERRO, he was hitting rock bottom: “I couldn’t go on any longer denying the truth to myself”. The next step was to go into therapy, to get a hold back on his life, “starting from my HOMOSEXUALITY”. The first result: this interview, in which for the first time he explains why he no longer intends to give up “living that part of me” which for so long he considered “a monster”. Second result: a diary-book which may “help someone not waste all the years I did”. Third result: “I hope I’ll be able to tell you very soon”.
“What’s going to happen after this?” Tiziano Ferro asks me. Then he answers himself: “Nothing will ever be the same as before”.
It is not often that an artist’s expectations from an interview are higher than the journalist’s. All the more so if the musician answering the questions is Tiziano Ferro, who has spent a large part of the past ten years topping the album sales charts half way around the world. An artist that since 2001, when Xdono was released, hasn’t flunked a single song, selling million of discs and garnering more awards than will fit into a computer screen readout. And who now, ahead of a new album release next year, is publishing an autobiographical book: a collection of his diary entries between 1995 and 2010, under the title Trent’anni e una chiacchierata con papa (Thirty Years and a Chat with Dad), which starts with a revelation. Or rather, with a gift Ferro has decided to make himself and all those who love him: to live happily and contentedly.
The story starts where all stories with a happy ending should: from its conclusion, from a promise of love. And that’s also the starting point he chooses to answer my question on why he wrote the book.
“A couple of years ago”, he says, “I started a psychotherapy process based on counselling and medication. I hadn’t felt well, both mentally and physically, for some time, and I knew I had to get a grip on a few things, starting with my relationship with homosexuality. So at the end of last year I reached a conclusion: I wanted to live that part of me, stop considering it as a monster, something bad to the point of being crippling. But was I also certain that to manage this, I had to give up my work. I was convinced the two things were incompatible. I talked to my father about it. I hoped I had found someone I could just bear my heart to, but he told me off: ‘It’s your right to be yourself, and if someone doesn’t like it, tell them to fuck themselves. But if this means quitting music, you’re making an even bigger mistake than you have so far by hiding your homosexual side’. But I thought: ‘Dad loves me so much, what else could he say?’ So I went to talk with my manager (Editor’s note: Fabrizio Giannini, Ferro’s manager since his debut). I said to myself: ‘He’ll be more rational about it, because he has a more neutral point of view’. Instead, Fabrizio caught me even more by surprise: ‘You deserve to have the life you wish for, because you’re not happy as you are. You’ve been living abroad for eight years (Editor’s note: first in Mexico, now in London), far from the people who love you, and that’s not right. I am totally with you, but if you’re thinking of calling it a day with music, you’re wrong again’. My father and my manager had taken my side with a force I hadn’t expected, and both had said the same thing: you’re more important than anything else, you were wrong in not realising that, and now you’re making another mistake. Two years of therapy had made me aware of a lot of things, but I didn’t know how to tackle them. Now it all seems absurd to me as well, but at the time I was truly convinced that in order to live my life, I was going to have to give up my job. Luckily, they did more than make it clear to me that I was wrong: their reaction was so strong that I felt ‘forced’ to come out. I did so through my diaries: I felt it was the only way I could explain things my way. So, to answer your question, the real reason for wanting to write this book is, well, obviously I’m looking for love, the part of life I have missed out on so far”.
Or, to be exact, the part you denied yourself. But why?
“I don’t know. It might be that when you’re not well, you see reality in a distorted way. Nobody ever put me in the condition to believe it was a problem, it was all my doing. The debate is always about the social impact of homosexuality, but there is never any talk about its impact on the individual, on a person’s problems and fragility. Sometimes we just inflict punishment on ourselves”.
So insecurities are the problem. What were yours?
“I think it all started with my inability to accept my body, with my being an overweight adolescent (Editor’s note: as a boy he weighed 111 kilos, hence the title of his album 111, released in 2003). It’s hard to have a relationship with another person if you don’t like yourself and don’t love yourself. On top of that, I had trouble dealing with success. I’m a workaholic. The truth is that for ten years I simply neglected everything that had nothing to do with music”.
First you couldn’t be happy because were overweight, then because you worked too much. Is that it?
“For a long time I did all I could to postpone the option of living happily. This might be because I grew up believing that there is more dignity in suffering, that being happy means being less of a good person. In a family, the person that suffers most, that makes the most sacrifices, is the one who deserves most respect”.
Is that how things were at home for you?
“I think it’s quite a widespread belief: if you’re happy, you’re superficial. Obviously a delusion, but hard to uproot. For a long time I felt it was my duty to nurture my angst rather than overcome it. Then one day I said to myself: ‘I have a job I love, I am financially independent, surrounded by people who love me, and I’m healthy. Why can’t I just enjoy life?’”
Indeed, why not?
“Living your sentimental life openly means allowing people to get to know you at a deeper level. And for a very guarded person like me, that is hard to accept. I always thought that if others knew me well, I’d be weaker, more vulnerable. And probably having to deal with homosexuality made things worse. But again: I can’t blame anyone other than myself. I still can’t explain why I considered homosexuality as a kind of ‘disease’. And the worst thing is, I could have come to terms with it all five years ago. For a small-town kid like me, used to seeing his parents work hard everyday to earn enough to keep the family going, it made sense to make my job the only thing that mattered, in order to make the most of the great opportunity life had given me. But if that may have been the case at the beginning, I have no excuses for how I behaved later on. I don’t have the presumption to save anybody, but if my book helps someone not waste all the years I wasted, that would make me happy”.
When did you first start having have doubts on you sexual preferences?
“There was one thing that, you could say, worked against me: I liked women. Maybe having girlfriends, and experiences with women, didn’t help me become truly aware that my feelings, my heart, was going somewhere else. Like everyone else, I started asking myself questions as a teenager. But I had a girlfriend at the time”.
Sara, the girl you talk about in the book?
“That’s not her real name. I asked all the people I talk about in the book to choose a fictional name. We were together for four years, from when I was 16 until I was 20. She was the first person I shared my doubts with. I told her I thought I was attracted to boys as well”.
And what did she say?
“She laughed at me in a kind way, saying that wasn’t possible. If at that age you’re in a relationship with a boy, you feel good with him and you’re in love, what else can you say to something like that?”
Then what happened?
“After I broke up with Sara, I signed my record deal: two months later I had a number one hit. I didn’t have time to think of anything else. Also, as I had flings with girls every now and then, and I let myself believe that I was making things up. I put my doubts to one side”.
Except for when you met men you liked.
“What fascinates me most is a person’s brain. I don’t care about the outside. I know it sounds trite, but it’s true: what counts is the way a person talks to me, tells me about something I don’t know, the impressive choices this person may have made”.
And what happened when you met that kind of man?
“I got into a state. On the one hand I knew I couldn’t go on pretending, on the other I kept trying to escape from the reality of things. A reality that had become all too obvious”.
Don’t tell me you were chaste for ten years because I won’t believe you.
“Almost. I’ve lived an absurd life. You have no idea how many nights I spent holed up in hotel rooms. Paris, Madrid, all those cities I thought were so beautiful, but in which I felt so out of place. What I remember most about that period was being hungry all the time, because I didn’t feel like going out for dinner with record company executives and I wouldn’t use room service. I didn’t really know how to, on the one hand, and on the other I didn’t want to spend too much of other people’s money. Thinking back to the person I was, I must say I find myself quite endearing”.
All the same, there’s been talk for years of you being gay. They even said it on TV, wrote about it in magazines.
“They said I led a double life and that I was happily together with a man. That made me furious. Not because they were suggesting I was gay, but because I would really have loved to have a boyfriend. But I didn’t have anyone. And I felt even worse because I just couldn’t come to terms with myself”.
Did you ever fear being found out?
“No. And there’s something else I want to say: I never publicly denied I was gay. It would have been easy to deny rumours by going out with a model. But I never lied. I just kept quiet about some things”.
In the book you say that at one point, to put an end to the rumours, someone suggested organising a fake chance encounter with paparazzi.
“That’s true, I’m sad to say. But I couldn’t care less. In fact, I was dropping clues everywhere”.
Such as?
“Apart from the video with Raffaella Carrà?” (Editor’s note: he laughs for half a minute. Reference is to the 2007 song Raffaella è mia, dedicated to the Italian celebrity and gay icon)”.
It was a bit of a giveaway, wasn’t it?
“I would make jokes with friends, for instance. It was as if I wanted to come out, but without committing. At the same time, I was still denying the truth to myself. It had become a challenge: ‘You’ll never find me out’. A useless battle, because I was its only victim. To the point that, despite having an album due out, I would get up in the morning feeling that I had no reason in life to go on”.
The phase of depression you went through, that you tell about in the book.
“I had finished my album (Editor’s note Alla mia età). I thought it was my best yet, and I didn’t want it to bear the consequences of something I could no longer keep control of. That was when I hit the bottom and decided to go into therapy. Two years ago, the idea of being here with you and talking about all this would have been inconceivable”.
However, rather than representing closure, the book seems to be a starting point. What do you expect will happen now?
“Reading my diaries again, I realised how important my friends have always been, and how much they suffered because I was away. From now on, I want to be with them more. I want to move back to Italy. I’m looking for a home in Milan. And in the meantime, I’ve already talked to all of them. I called them one by one. ‘Let’s go out for a coffee’, I said to each of them. I had written out a sort of set list”.
How did they react?
“They were relieved and happy. They could no longer bear to watch and keep quiet while I was crushed by the weight I felt on my shoulders. Of course, they all knew, they aren’t daft, but they would never have been the first to take on the subject, out of respect for me”.
A new home, more time with friends. And what about love?
“I have no one at the moment, but I hope not for long. I am such a strong believer in love it seems absurd I shouldn’t have one of my own. It’s like having a sweet tooth and not even allowing yourself a tiny pastry”.
You see, you’ve owned up: if you don’t have a love life, it’s because you denied yourself one. I’m going to ask you again: why?
“I would have had to live e double life, and I’m not able to do that. I find it irritating when I hear talk of ‘accepting homosexuality’. My dream is to share. Having a family that accepts my choices is not enough, I want them to live these choices with me. And the same goes for my friends”.
How do you imagine true love?
“Being so happy you can overcome any difficulty with a smile. But I hope I’ll be able to expand on that very soon”.
Do you regret having wasted ten years?
“I do, very much. What else can I say? Very, very, very, much.
NY Times Article: White Lesbian Jewish Candidate For Mayor In Oakland Gains Support From Heterosexual African Americans & Conservative White Groups!!
The Bay Citizen
Lesbian Candidate for Oakland Mayor Gains Surprise Allies
Rebecca Kaplan, who is running for Oakland mayor, addressed members of Allen Temple Baptist Church and others on Wednesday at an election forum as the timekeeper signaled that she had 15 seconds left.
By ZUSHA ELINSON
Published: October 9, 2010
In 2008, church leaders from Oakland were on the front lines of the campaign to ban same-sex marriage.
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Two years later, some of those same leaders are surprisingly backing Rebecca Kaplan, a City Council member who would become the first openly gay mayor of a major Bay Area city.
A former rabbinical student, Ms. Kaplan makes campaign stops with her well-thumbed, gold-trimmed bible, as she did Wednesday at the mayoral debate at Allen Temple Baptist Church, one of the largest black churches in the city.
Dressed in a dark suit and an open-collared shirt, Ms. Kaplan, who enunciates with the clarity and precision of a preacher, used part of Psalm 118 to make a campaign point: “The rock that the builder rejected shall become the topmost cornerstone, and Oakland will become the most desirable place to live.” The audience applauded.
“You have got a Jewish lesbian white woman who comes to black churches and sings with the choir and quotes Scripture better than the members — I just love her,” said Pastor Ray Williams of First Morning Star Baptist Church, who spoke at rallies in favor of Proposition 8, the bar to same-sex marriage. He is now endorsing Ms. Kaplan.
Ms. Kaplan, 40, was elected to the Council in 2008 after serving on the AC Transit board, and political consultants said her broad challenge will be to woo older voters who are familiar with the two front-runners in the race —Don Perata, 65, a former state senator, and Jean Quan, 60, a longtime councilwoman. Ms. Kaplan appeals to the younger, hipper demographic in the city.
The latest poll from the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce has Mr. Perata and Ms. Quan close together, with Ms. Kaplan third. She is also hundreds of thousands of dollars behind in fund-raising, with just $12,000 cash on hand at the end of September, compared with $125,000 for Ms. Quan and $147,000 for Mr. Perata.
Jobs, crime and the city’s deficit are key issues for all the candidates. For Ms. Kaplan, the beginning of the solution to Oakland’s crime problem is economic development.
“We need to build our economic base and that’s how we solve this for the long term,” Ms. Kaplan said.
Ms. Kaplan has already led an effort to attract, tax and regulate what has become a booming medical marijuana industry in Oakland. She co-authored the legislation to allow industrial-scale medical marijuana growing facilities in the city — legislation that garnered national attention. She also co-authored a measure on this fall’s ballot that would raise taxes on medical marijuana.
As Election Day nears, the candidates are courting Oakland’s many undecided voters. And with no viable black candidate, the city’s churches — powerful political forces in the black community — have become a major focus. For Ms. Kaplan, it is a novel quest, given the churches’ role in the campaign to pass Proposition 8.
“Oakland is the city in California with the highest per capita of churches and the highest per capita of lesbians,” said Ms. Kaplan, who is married to her partner, Astraea. “Any strife between the two is overblown, and, really, why not have that end here in Oakland?
Ms. Kaplan, a Democrat like her main rivals, was involved in one of the most vitriolic clashes between the gay community and the religious community in Oakland this year. Gay activists bitterly opposed the reappointment of Lorenzo Hoopes — the 96-year-old former president of the Mormon Temple in Oakland — to the obscure board of directors that runs the Paramount Theater.
Mr. Hoopes had donated $26,000 to the campaign for Proposition 8, which angered Ms. Kaplan, who also criticized the theater for its lack of gay and transgender programming. In January, Mr. Hoopes’s reappointment was withdrawn and remains in limbo.
The Bay Area’s prominent gay newspaper, the Bay Area Reporter, cheered with the headline “LGBT Oaklanders flex their political muscle.” But religious Oaklanders and columnists at The Oakland Tribune and The San Francisco Chronicle said the criticism was an attack on the free speech rights of Mr. Hoopes, a longtime Oakland resident and former Safeway executive.
This summer, at the urging of Paul Cobb — a mutual friend who is the publisher of the black newspaper The Oakland Post — Mr. Hoopes and Ms. Kaplan met for what Ms. Kaplan likened to President Obama’s beer summit. She arrived with her Hebrew bible, he with his Book of Mormon. And for 45 minutes, they quoted Scripture and debated translations.
“We both came into it thinking we would not get along, and we were both kind of shocked how well we got along,” Ms. Kaplan said
By the end, there was an accord. Ms. Kaplan said she would vote for Mr. Hoopes to remain on the Paramount board. And Mr. Hoopes said he was supporting Ms. Kaplan’s bid for mayor by talking to his friends. He also wrote her campaign a $200 check.
“She’s very well educated with her law degree, very energetic, and very well versed in religion,” said Mr. Hoopes, adding that Proposition 8 was not discussed.
Mr. Hoopes said that he still held his views against same-sex marriage, but that Ms. Kaplan’s sexuality was “not a concern to me or rarely to anyone else.”
Doug Linney, a consultant who ran Ms. Kaplan’s council campaign but is now supporting Mr. Perata, said he was amazed at the people she had won over from conservative backgrounds, unions and businesses, which he said she had done with a combination of “smarts and charm.”
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Still, he said, he has a hard time seeing her winning. “The voters have been whiplashed by Ron Dellums, whom they thought for sure was going to help the city,” Mr. Linney said. “I think they’re looking for someone who’s going to be very hands on and can manage Oakland, and she is still going to appeal to some voters as too new and inexperienced to do that.”
While Ms. Kaplan is outgoing and charismatic, she lacks the experience of her opponents. Mr. Perata has been endorsed by a number of pastors, including Bishop Bob Jackson, who heads the 7,000-member Acts Full Gospel Church, known for its political influence in East Oakland.
When Ms. Kaplan sought Mr. Jackson’s endorsement, he said he told her, “I don’t think you’ve had a chance to warm up your seat yet.”
Mr. Jackson credited Mr. Perata, a former East Oakland supervisor, with helping to secure a $500,000 grant from the state to finance his Men of Valor program, which helps men who are released from prison to re-enter society. The two men met as Oakland struggled through the crack epidemic.
“He’s one of the few that’s reaching out to the ecumenical community,” Mr. Jackson said of Mr. Perata. “He’s not a stranger to us.”
That familiarity is important, but with many older blacks moving to the suburbs in recent years, the power of the churches and the demographic is diminishing, political consultants said.
Still, churches like Acts Full Gospel and First African Methodist Church, with its 3,800 members, get people on the ground to help out with campaigns. “We do the walking; we do the telephone banking; we ask our members to volunteer; we do voter registration,” said the Rev. Harold Mayberry of First African Methodist Church, who has endorsed Ms. Kaplan.
“I was looking for a candidate No. 1 who can mobilize people, who has not necessarily been in the system for a long time,” Mr. Mayberry said. “We’ve got to move past whether a person’s lifestyle is gay or straight. Oakland is in a terrible situation.”
Advocate Article: Italian Singer Tiziano Ferro Comes Out Of The Closet!
Italian Singer Tiziano Ferro: I’m Gay
Italian pop star Tiziano Ferro comes out in the new issue of Italy’s Vanity Fair, saying he’s spent many years not feeling good about himself and hopes being open will lead to a better way of life.
“For a long time I haven’t felt good about myself…and after many tough years…I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to live better,” he said.
Italian tabloids had published stories in recent months linking Ferro to a mystery man. Ferro said the articles hurt, but not because he was worried about being outed.
“I would get very upset because I wished I had a boyfriend, but I had no one,” he said.
Ferro has released four studio albums since his debut in 2002, his latest, 2008’s Alla Mia Età, going 10x platinum in Italy and selling more than 500,000 copies. His albums have hit number one in Italy, Mexico and Switzerland and he’s collaborated with Mary J. Blige, Kelly Rowland and Laura Pausini, among others.
His autobiography is due in bookstores in Italy by the end of the year.
Times Of India Article: Violence Erupts In The Eastern European Country Serbia During Today’s Gay Pride Parade!!!
Protestors dressed mainly in black and with hooded sweatshirts hurled rocks and other projectiles at police, who retaliated with tear gas and tried to drive the groups apart with the help of several armoured vehicles.
One group attacked the headquarters of the Democratic Party (DS) of President Boris Tadic, who had supported the march. The building caught fire but the flames were quickly put out.
“The building is ruined for a large part, the fire was localised and no one was wounded,” DS spokeswoman Jelena Trivan said.
The central Terazije Square was littered with rocks and debris from the protest, with most of the violence erupting after the march had ended.
B92 television station reported that at least 57 people were wounded — 10 civilians and 47 police officers.
“The hunt has begun,” anti-gay protestors shouted as mounted police kept them at bay at the start of the parade.
They tried to break through heavy police cordons protecting the gay activists but were kept back by security forces.
“It’s bad that we are sealed off by the cops but … maybe in 10 years it will be different,” said one of the marchers, Nikola, who did not want to give his last name.
“After the beatings, after living in fear, this is what we needed, to become visible,” he said.
About 1,000 joined the Gay Pride march, according to an AFP estimate.
This was far below 5,000-10,000 who took part in a protest on Saturday to demonstrate against it, including families with children and young football supporters, some of whom gave Nazi salutes and shouted for the death of homosexuals.
Sunday’s parade included well-known Serbian actress Mirjana Karanovic and representatives of the international community.
“We have to be here to show that we are not afraid, that our gay friends are the same as us,” Karanovic said.
Serbia’s first ever Gay Pride parade in 2001 was broken up by violent clashes provoked by right-wing extremists.
Plans to organise a parade last year were called off after the government said it could not guarantee the safety of participants.
“We are here to celebrate this big day we have been waiting for so long,” said the representative of the European Commission in Belgrade, French diplomat Vincent Degert.
A special representative of the Council of Europe secretary general in Serbia, Constantin Yerpcostopoulos, praised the authorities for supporting the march.
“When Serbia … openly celebrates diversity … we know that our values honouring human rights and liberties are respected and protected,” he said.
The Serbian Orthodox Church spoke out against the parade on Friday but also warned against violence targeting participants.
On Sunday, as the gay activists marched in the Kneza Milosa street next to a church, several nuns, a priest and a man waved with a cross.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has said the gay parade was a test of “the maturity of Serbian democracy.”
Anti-gay sentiment still runs deep in Serbian society and openly gay people are confronted with discrimination on a regular basis.
“We are here and that’s what’s important,” Sara, another marcher who also refused to give her last name, told AFP. “This is the first step on a long road but I’m happy that it finally happend,” she said.
Read more: Violence erupts at Serbia’s second ever Gay Pride parade – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Violence-erupts-at-Serbias-second-ever-Gay-Pride-parade/articleshow/6724406.cms#ixzz11sPJWPRX
Sad Comment From Salon.com article Black Women & Marriage. What Advice Do You Have For Kitten Moon?
Saturday, October 9, 2010 12:32 AM ET
Men ignore me
As a young black woman, I don’t think a lot of men of other races are interested in black women. I go to Texas Tech which is about 70% white and the city of Lubbock is majority white, yet I’ve never had a boyfriend or have been kissed. Even though I’m around a lot of white men, some will go out there way to find some of the few available Asian women.
Getting a college degree and a good job is great, but having a family is the most important thing for me. I just can’t wrap my mind that I might be single forever, but it looks like its turning out to be my reality.
—Kitten_Moon
Gayblackcanada 