House of Versace: The Untold Story of Genius, Murder, and Survival

by Deborah Ball

  Not long before Allegra’s birthday, Donatella had set up a time to sit down with her daughter to discuss the management of her stake after she turned eighteen. By then Allegra was a determined young woman, not a meek girl. Allegra announced that she intended to begin exercising control of her stake in the house. She would manage the share herself from now on and would hire an adviser to help.

  When the news spread that Allegra had engaged Carpinelli, Versace employees and friends of the family, enormously surprised at the young woman’s gumption, were immensely relieved. They recognized that if Donatella continued to call the shots, the company risked ending up bankrupt or being sold to a rival. They admired the teenager’s courage in asserting her role in the company. With Allegra in charge, there was a glimmer of hope.

  On the evening of June 30, 2004, two dozen close friends and family members, including Santo, Paul, Daniel, and Donatella, gathered at Via Gesù for a private dinner party to celebrate Allegra’s birthday. Two of Gianni’s best friends, Ingrid Sischy, the editor in chief of Interview Magazine, and her girlfriend, Sandy Brant, CEO of the magazine, were also there. Once everyone was gathered, Donatella made a move to slip away, headed to the bathroom for a line of cocaine to brace herself for the evening ahead.

  Just then, Elton John walked into the room. Some guests were delighted, thinking it a surprise visit for Allegra, but Donatella was shocked; she knew she hadn’t invited him. On cue, Elton, Santo, Paul, Allegra, and a couple of close friends led Donatella to another room in the magnificent palazzo, while assistants quietly asked the other guests to leave.

  Elton took the lead. He confronted Donatella with her behavior, telling her that she would destroy everything if she didn’t make a change and get clean. “Donatella, we’re not forcing you, but you need to go to rehab,” he told her. “There’s a plane waiting for you.” Late into the night, her friends and family—Allegra in particular—pressed Donatella, recounting how much damage her addiction was causing to the company, her children, and her friends. Overwhelmed, she finally gave in. She changed out of her evening gown, took off her jewelry, and put on a jogging suit. Then she headed to the airport, where she boarded a private plane headed for Arizona.12 For much of the long trip, she sobbed.

  At first glance, the Meadows rehab clinic in Wickenburg, Arizona, hardly seems a destination for the rich and famous. Sitting about sixty miles northwest of Phoenix, it is nestled in a picture-perfect southwestern setting on the edge of the Sonoran Desert. Wickenburg, population 6,500, is a proverbial one-horse town, bereft of luxury hotels or fashionable restaurants. With its giant cacti and cottonwood trees, it once claimed itself the “Dude Ranch Capital of the World.” Dry and hot by day, it often enjoys a cool breeze at night, under a sky dotted with countless twinkling stars.

  The Meadows was the project of a woman named Pia Mellody, who, in the late 1970s, established an intense treatment plan based on twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. By 2004, the Meadows was offering an array of treatment programs for addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex, and gambling, charging about $35,000 for the typical five-week stint. While Los Angeles and New York claim countless rehab facilities, celebrities looking for privacy chose the Meadows for its remote locale and reputation for discretion. Stars could fly into Phoenix, far from paparazzi, and disappear. The clinic’s staff was trained to be on guard for journalists, with a book holding the details of attempts by media to wheedle information about VIPs. Guards patrolled the compound twenty-four hours a day.

  For Donatella, the Meadows was a universe away from her usual five-star standards. The compound consisted of a half-dozen low-rise buildings of brown stucco, surrounded by a high fence. There was a pool, closed in by a high tan-colored railing. Rooms were spartan, a functional cross between a hospital and a dorm room, with narrow single beds, tiny closets, and plain white bathrooms with Dixie-cup dispensers. Flagstone paths edged with low gray and beige stone walls connected the buildings. From the compound, the only view was of stretches of reddish brown desert.

  Donatella arrived at the Meadows thinking the doctors would console her about her myriad troubles, but during her intake, she saw that the treatment plan was very different.13 At their arrival, patients had to sign “suicide contracts” pledging not to harm themselves, and nurses collected urine samples to do a drug screen. The staff searched luggage for contraband such as drugs, razors, or sexually explicit literature. Because the clinic has a large sex-addiction treatment program, women weren’t allowed to wear any tight or skimpy clothing, open-toed shoes, or even makeup. Donatella traded in her usual garb of skintight tops and pants for baggy T-shirts with round necks and shapeless pants. Swimming times at the pools were strictly segregated, and if she wanted to swim, she would have to wear a one-piece bathing suit. Versace’s skimpy bikinis were taboo.

  New patients received a tote bag of required reading, including several books on codependency by Pia Mellody and John Bradshaw, a therapist who has appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s and Geraldo Rivera’s talk shows. She received a name tag with her photo and her name—simply “Donatella V.”—written in block letters next to her intake number. The badges were color-coded so that the staff would immediately recognize which addiction the patient was suffering from. Patients had to wear the badges around their necks at all times and had to carry pagers so that the staff could reach them wherever they went on campus. After her intake, a nurse led Donatella to her room, which she would share with two other patients. On her chart was her diagnosis: severe depression.

  She ate her meals in a communal cafeteria, where patients often stood up to shout slogans they’d learned in therapy, such as “I’m a codependent in recovery.” The pronouncements sparked rounds of applause from fellow patients, who followed with their own slogans. Meals were bland but nutritious, and sugar and caffeine were banned—a hardship for someone used to downing a dozen espressos a day. Patients could smoke only outdoors, under the scorching summer sun, in one of the designated smoking “pits,” which were segregated by sex to discourage fraternizing.

  Donatella’s contact with the outside world was minimal. Cell phones were banned. Patients bought calling cards and stood in line to make short calls home on pay phones. Timers on the phones cut off calls after the time allocated, and calls were noted in a log that the doctors would later examine. At night, the nurses checked on patients with small flashlights.

  Every day, a nurse asked Donatella to identify her feelings from a printed list. For three weeks, her answer was the same: guilt and shame.14 Every day, Donatella woke at 5:30 a.m., ate breakfast at 5:45 a.m., and started on group therapy. Her schedule was full: several hours of intensive group therapy sessions a day, plus twelve-step meetings, spirituality counseling, art therapy, lectures, and sessions with a psychiatrist. After the meetings, Donatella had to do such “homework” assignments as writing an autobiographical time line recounting her life from birth to the age of nineteen.

  At first, Donatella balked at having to air her dirty laundry in front of strangers in group therapy. “Can’t I tell my story in private?” she asked her counselor.15 But the Meadows made no exceptions, not even for VIPs. The other patients, who recognized Donatella in spite of—or because of—her coy, twelve-step-style name tag, sat rapt while she recounted her story.

  She went through a therapy boot camp dubbed “Survivors Week,” in which she picked through her life for evidence of the trauma and neglect that were the sources of her problems. During Survivors Week, patients were encouraged to act out their rage; for instance, to beat on chairs that represented their mothers. On the fifth day, other members of the group kissed and hugged one another when they “graduated” from the weeklong intensive therapy.

  Around a month after her arrival came Family Week. The staff asked Donatella for her children’s phone numbers. “No, no, no!” she said, recoiling, horrified that her children should see her in such condition. “I don’t want to involve my children.” The staff insisted. Family sessions
were a critical part of healing the damage created by years of drug abuse. When Donatella told her children she was against their coming to the Meadows, they were upset. Why don’t you want us to come? they asked her. Why don’t you want to have anything to do with us?16

  Donatella relented. A few days later, Allegra and Daniel arrived in Arizona. Allegra had to follow the same dress code as her mother—no revealing clothes, such as shorts or tank tops. She and Daniel were given name tags, and they ate together with Donatella in the communal cafeteria. It was agonizing for their mother, yet she sobbed when they left, happy to end years of hiding her problems from her children.

  After several weeks in the facility, Donatella started feeling better. She earned some privileges, and she could indulge a bit—she had a manicurist come in from a salon in town to do her nails. In mid-August, after five weeks in Arizona, a clean and sober Donatella flew to the Caribbean for a vacation with Daniel and Allegra. She left armed with phone numbers for twelve-steps groups that catered to celebrities as well as contact information for other patients—known in Meadows jargon as “peers”—whom she had befriended at the clinic.

  Her focus now was on repairing her tattered relationship with her children, particularly Allegra. After their Caribbean vacation, Allegra was due to move to the United States to join the freshman class at Brown. Just as Donatella was determined to heal her relationship with her daughter, Allegra was leaving the nest.

  *This account, based on several sources, is disputed by Donatella Versace, who maintains that her role in the company was not an issue in the discussions but that Ford’s offer was turned down because it was not an attractive offer financially.

  nineteen

  Recovery

  wHILE DONATELLA CONFRONTED HER DEMONS IN THE ARIZONA desert, business executive Giancarlo Di Risio was wrestling with his own dilemma back in Italy. During the summer of 2004, an emissary from Versace’s creditors had approached him: Was he interested in becoming chief executive of the house?

  Di Risio, forty-nine, was tempted. His professional background and distinctive temperament might suit the job of wrangling such a messy company back into shape. First, Di Risio shared the Versaces’ southern heritage. He was born the eldest son in a well-to-do family from Molise, a poor region northwest of Naples. His father had a passion for fast cars and had owned one of the largest car dealerships in Italy, selling luxury Italian brands such as Alfa Romeo and Lancia during the peak of the country’s economic boom in the 1950s and 1960s. As a teenager in the early 1970s, Di Risio was the envy of his high school friends, tooling around in sports cars he was allowed to borrow from his father’s fleet. His father had also become an avid race-car driver, and both Di Risio and his younger brother, Massimo, joined him in his avocation, racing often in multistage rallies that lasted for days.

  After an extended adolescence, a young Di Risio enrolled at the University of Bologna to study political science but dropped out to join the sales team at Lamborghini, the storied Italian carmaker that also produced high-powered motors for race boats as well as more mundane products such as tractors. Then, in the mid-1980s, he met Tonino Perna, a Molise entrepreneur. Perna, a graduate of Naples’s fine arts academy, had launched Jesus Jeans with his brother in the early 1970s. The line became a short-lived hot seller after kicking up a scandal for a risqué advertising campaign featuring a closeup shot of a woman’s denim-clad bottom and a headline reading “Those Who Love Me Will Follow Me.” In 1986, Perna set out to establish his own company, founding Ittierre in Pettoranello di Molise, an industrial area two hours southwest of Rome. Di Risio met Perna when the businessman sponsored a race he was competing in. Impressed by the young man, Perna soon convinced Di Risio to help him get his new venture off the ground.

  At Ittierre, the thirty-year-old Di Risio found his calling. At first glance, he had little of the back-slapping charisma or bonhomie typical of Italian executives. He cut a sober figure, with wire-rimmed glasses, a conservative taste for clothes, and an intense, slightly dogged style of speaking, as if he were reciting a PowerPoint presentation. He had the plain look of an accounting professor: slightly skinny, with brown hair and a pale complexion.

  Yet, Di Risio proved himself to be one of those rare executives with both a far-reaching vision and the stamina to carry it out. He had an extraordinary capacity to work, keeping a grueling eighteen-hours-a-day schedule and often going as long as forty-eight hours without eating, subsisting on a stream of strong cappuccinos. He and Perna had spotted a new, rich market. Young people who had snapped up the stylish jeans launched in the early 1980s by Calvin Klein and Armani had started to look for more than just trendy dungarees. Hanging out around local high schools and universities, Di Risio saw the potential for creating a full range of designer clothes that were stylish but casual and cheap enough for people in their twenties. Armed with market research, including interviews with sociologists, Di Risio doggedly canvassed star Italian designers with proposals to create secondary lines together. He scored a big win in 1989 when, after two years of pressing, he convinced Gianni and Santo to launch a pair of casual lines—Versus and Versace Jeans Couture. Other designers, such as Dolce & Gabbana and Roberto Cavalli, soon followed.

  Di Risio built Ittierre into an epitome of efficiency, making it a precursor to the “fast-fashion” giants such as Zara and H&M that would erupt around the turn of the millennium. Each brand had its own staff housed in individual two-story buildings on a campuslike headquarters, churning out offbeat collections of clothes, jackets, shoes, bags, and belts in coordination with the brands’ own design teams. A fully automated factory produced eighty thousand pieces a day. When a new product became a hot seller, the teams produced flash collections, delivering them in days. Ittierre opened shops for the brands’ secondary lines, handled advertising, and designed the window displays. By the time of Gianni’s death, Ittierre had opened sixty Versus and ten Versace Jeans Couture shops for Versace. In 2001, its sales topped $500 million.

  Even though he was the chief executive of one of Italy’s most successful companies, Di Risio was remarkably low-key. He dressed in well-cut but conservative suits and classic silk Hermès ties. Extremely reserved, he shunned the sort of showboating that so many top executives revel in. In interviews with the press, he studiously evaded any questions about his personal life. He often called early morning or late-night meetings with his managers—unheard of in a country where the workday starts as late as 10 a.m. His was closer to the American style of management than the Italians’ unruly, makeshift approach. On the rare weekends when he didn’t work, he liked to make jam with his wife and two children in their home in the countryside outside Rome. Cars were a rare extravagance; he collected a fleet of antique autos, including a pair of sleek Aston Martins.

  In the early 2000s, Di Risio, then forty-five, wanted a change. At the time, LVMH was looking for someone to fix Fendi, its problem child. In November 2001, LVMH bought out Prada’s stake and took control of the Roman house. Fendi was a wreck, bleeding money and heavily in debt. The house, whose extraordinary sale price had marked the peak of fashion’s aquisition frenzy, had turned out to be a one-trick pony. Sales of the Baguette bag had gone stone-cold. Deliveries were chronically late, and exasperated retailers were canceling orders. The quarrelsome Fendi clan, who still owned 49 percent of the company, had established a series of fiefdoms and ignored LVMH’s efforts to clean up a tangle of cheap licenses, unprofitable lines, and sky-high costs. Bernard Arnault thought the situation required an Italian executive schooled in the ways of family-run companies. In January 2002, Di Risio became Fendi’s chief executive officer.

  Over the course of a year, Di Risio managed to ease out most of the family members, persuading them to sell their stakes to LVMH. (The French giant would spend more than $1 billion in all to acquire the small house.) He cut costs and replaced the Fendi family with professional managers, but the company continued to bleed money. At the same time, Di Risio clashed with Karl Lagerfeld, who
had designed Fendi’s fur and clothing collections for three decades; the two butted heads over cost cutting and the fact that Fendi was a sideline to the star designer’s main act at Chanel. Lagerfeld threatened to quit.1 Wary of alienating Lagerfeld and impatient with the house’s red ink, in May 2003 Arnault gave responsibility for Fendi’s strategy to a star LVMH executive who had brought Christian Dior back to profitability. That fall, Di Risio resigned.

  When Versace came calling the following summer, Di Risio, happily unemployed, was reluctant to take on the leadership of another troubled house. He had worked closely with the company on Versus and the jeans line for nearly two decades and knew the family’s vagaries all too well. Moreover, after the collapse of the talks with De Sole and Ford, Versace’s creditors had arrived in force. While Donatella was in Arizona, Santo negotiated a deal to pay off the bond, but the banks exacted a heavy price, effectively taking control of the company. They extended 120 million euros in new loans to pay off the bond, but demanded Versace’s prize assets as collateral, including the Via Gesù palazzo and the townhouse in Manhattan. A new seven-person board would include four outside directors answerable to the banks. Santo had to step aside, clearing the way for new management. Donatella could stay, but a new chief executive would have full control of budgets and would carefully monitor her atelier. The new CEO had until Christmas to prove that Versace could survive. If not, the banks would sell everything.