House Of Gucci director Ridley Scott has dismissed criticism made about his new film by the family at the centre of it all.
The filmmaker is currently gearing up for the release of his new movie about the Gucci dynasty, which features Adam Scott and Lady Gaga as Maurizio Gucci and Patrizia Reggiani.
Earlier this year, Patrizia Gucci – the great-granddaughter of Guccio Gucci, not to be confused with Gaga’s House Of Gucci character – said her family was “truly disappointed” by the new film.
Speaking “on behalf of the family”, she told AP: “They are stealing the identity of a family to make a profit, to increase the income of the Hollywood system… Our family has an identity, privacy.
“We can talk about everything. But there is a borderline that cannot be crossed.”
Brushing this off in an interview with the BBC’s Today programme, Scott insisted: “I don’t engage with that. You have to remember that one Gucci was murdered and another went to jail for tax evasion so you can’t be talking to me about making a profit.
“As soon as you do that you become part of the public domain.”
House Of Gucci features Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, who was sentenced to 29 years in prison in 1997, for arranging the murder of her husband, Maurizio.
Reggiani was released in October 2016 after serving 18 years of her sentence, and now resides in Milan.
While British Vogue previously reported that Reggiani had been “pleased” that a “marquee name” like Gaga would portray her on the big screen, she later claimed she was “annoyed by the fact” the singer didn’t have “the foresight and sensitivity to come and meet me”.
Defending her decision not to meet Reggiani before filming got underway, Gaga told the magazine: “I only felt that I could truly do this story justice if I approached it with the eye of a curious woman who was interested in possessing a journalistic spirit so that I could read between the lines of what was happening in the film’s scenes.
“Meaning that nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia Gucci was. Not even Patrizia Gucci.”
House Of Gucci is released on Friday 26 November.