Lorenzo Leonarduzzi, the commentator of the sexist sentences: “Jokes of dubious taste but I was off the air. And an accusation is false”

ROME — “To begin with, I wasn’t on the news at the time. Or rather, I didn’t know I was. So that of the diving competitions is not a commentary in which I let myself go. For an off-air joke they are throwing mountains of m… on Rai, a company for which it is an honor for me to work. Something doesn’t add up to me.” He defends himself from Fukuoka Lorenzo Leonarduzzi60 years old, journalist from RaiSport, targeted for the sexist and racist comments reported by Rai Play viewers on public TV in Viale Mazzini during the commentary of the Swimming World Championships underway in Japan. It’s not the first time he’s gotten into trouble: once he wished Hitler a happy birthday with a post on Facebook, another he said a sexist phrase in the commentary and he was suspended.

It’s 7pm in Italy on Monday, it’s already night in Japan, when Leonarduzzi speaks from the hotel in Fukuoka where he’s waiting to find out which plane he and the technical commentator are on Maximilian Mazzucchi will return to Italy. Decision of CEO Rai Robert Sergiothe company initiated disciplinary proceedings against the two.

Leonarduzzi, re-reading the sentences, the only thing left to ask is: how the hell did it come to your mind?

“Let me reconstruct the facts because everything that is happening has an exaggeratedly large scope and is wrong. It is worse than a live slip. I had to go on the air at 8.30 in Italy for the women’s synchronized diving, 15.30 in Japan. When I connected with the director, they told me: ‘No, you’re not on the air because Tg2 is on. Today we’re not going to Rai Play, we’ll do everything live until the end’. headphones and I started joking with my close colleagues, including Mazzucchi”.

He told the joke about women, the one about the musical notes “Si La Do”.

“I was off the air, on break, I wasn’t working at the time. That’s the crux of the story. I can agree the joke was in dubious taste, but goodness me some things can still be said, they’re not forbidden. Then I asked for a technical term on the harp, which I discovered is ‘plucked’ and not ‘played.’ A debate born from the surname of an athlete, Harper”.

He is accused of body shaming for calling Dutch female divers “big”.

“It is a technical comment made together with Mazzucchi. They are one meter eighty tall and with broader and more muscular shoulders than the other opponents. They are technical-sporting observations that I also make on the men. I have not done body shaming because I have a lot of respect for the sportsmen’s body. And then I made a comparison with Giulia Vittorioso, also very muscular, who is my relative. So let alone if I wanted to be offensive “.

Then, we read, he said that women, tall or short, “are all the same in bed”. Doesn’t that seem serious to you?

“It’s a phrase I’ve never said, I swear. I’m explaining the rest line by line, but I didn’t say those words. I hope the recording comes out to prove it.”

After Riccardo Giovannini’s dive he crippled his name to “Liccaldo” mocking the Chinese who have difficulty pronouncing the letter “r”. Why did he do it?

“No teasing, on the contrary. It was a compliment for Riccardo. A dive so well executed as to be on par with those of the Chinese masters. A joke made by those who, with problems with the ‘r’, have to constantly say ‘grouped’ and ‘picked’”.

So, to her, is it all a conspiracy?

“I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but now I have thoughts. Why watch Leonarduzzi’s eight hours of live coverage with that attention? Someone wants to tarnish Rai, so it’s an honor to work for it. There’s something that doesn’t add up to me and with my lawyers want to get to the bottom of this affair. I read that there is an alleged Pec sent to Rai by a spectator: the last line of this alleged email contains veiled threats. It was then circulated on social networks half an hour later. It seems to me a constructed operation”.

What did Rai tell you?

“I only spoke to the director of Rai Sport, Jacopo Volpi, and we clarified everything. I did not speak to the CEO Sergio about this drastic decision, nor to his secretariat. I read about the return flight to Italy in the newspapers” .

Do you feel compelled to apologize?

“I apologize to Rai for the ocean of m… that was poured on her. But not for my words, I was told that I was off the air and not that there was an open microphone of another channel. So I I relax for a moment joking with colleagues. I feel sorry for the company, but I don’t have to justify myself with a ‘Yes la Do’ joke. I said it when I wasn’t operational. I can’t pay for a technological system that has notable flaws in switching the microphones on and off. When there was an apology, I did it “.

Are you referring to the 2020 Monza rally and the bad joke about dwarf women?

“Yes, my egregious bullshit. I silently accepted all the measures taken by Rai at the time and left again being much more careful”.

Are you afraid of disciplinary proceedings?

“I’m very worried, but at the same time I can’t wait to talk to Rai to clarify everything. My personal dignity is at stake, an audio theft has created a huge media echo that has also overwhelmed my family. Sui social networks threatened me, some wrote that they wanted to see my plane crash. My mum, in tears, called me from my wife’s phone asking me what was going on”.