Singer Andrea Bocelli was rained down by critics a few months ago for lamenting the closure of the pandemic, some words he believes are taken out of context: “It was absurd to call myself a negativist,” he explained in a conversation with Efe with on the occasion of the inauguration of the headquarters of his foundation in Florence (north).
“Maybe I expressed myself in an inappropriate or insufficient way for time reasons, because he wanted to say many things in a few minutes, it’s not always easy “, admits the Italian singer on the phone.
It all happened in July at a Senate event on coronavirus and science. He assured Matteo Salvini in front of the participants, including the far right “Humiliated and offended” for the ban on leaving the house and confessed that he did not listen to her.
“It was absurd to define myself as a denier, because I went through covid in the first place, natural, “he insisted directly.
The 62-year-old tenor was perfectly aware of the pathogen, because in his house everyone except his wife, Veronica Berti, suffered from it, although he was asymptomatic and his children had only a few tenths of a fever, without too much very important.
In addition, during this health crisis, he gave a helping hand to his foundation: “I brought help and tried to do what we had to do in the hardest moment of the emergency, with the closure (spring). We started, “he said.
Later, Bocelli clarified what he was trying to express, but the words flew and the controversy spread like wildfire, especially on the Internet: “What was said and written on social networks was a terrible mistake,” he laments.
Especially because, he assures, he is neither and does not know any denier: “Denying the evidence is an intellectual accident, whoever denies the evidence needs a psychologist,” he says.
In the past, the singer went to the capital of his native Tuscany on Friday to inaugurate the headquarters of the Andrea Bocelli Foundation (ABF), on the second floor of an impressive baroque building in the heart of the city, which he saved from abandonment and restored.
It will open its doors next Sunday, International Education Day, and will be the epicenter of a foundation celebrating its first decade of life this year, which it decided to create in 2011 after witnessing the earthquake in Haiti with terror. a year earlier.
ABF is dedicated to helping people who have difficulty living due to disease, poverty or social marginalization, promoting and supporting national and international projects that enable them to overcome these barriers and exploit their full potential.
Since its inception, it has built nine schools in Haiti and Italy thanks to the 36 million euros, providing education for over 3,500 students and promoted projects to provide water and medicine for over 400,000 disadvantaged people, among other projects.
The singer lives with “great satisfaction” the inauguration of the new headquarters in the San Firenze complex, behind the Palazzo Vecchio, the Florentine town hall.
“It is a wonderful place, no doubt it will be an inspiration for all those who for various reasons, for work or tourism, will arrive and we hope that many concrete projects will be born and will be realized from this headquarters,” he says. , as an omen.
Bocelli emphasizes this last word because he makes sure that in these years, the results of his foundation are tangible. Think, for example, of the schools he gave to areas devastated by earthquakes in Italy, such as the music school in Camerino (center).
After the ten-year history of its inception, Bocelli does not dare to predict what the future will be like, but what he hopes is that this pandemic will be able to come out “as soon as possible”, that people will find serenity, confidence again. and its certainties “.
Well, he warns, at the moment “the situation is dramatic for many people who have had to close their businesses and have lost their only source of income.”
His organization has also suffered some slowdowns due to technical and logistical reasons arising from the health crisis, but in any case, the ongoing projects have been completed.