‘This Is Extremely Painful’: The Gucci Family Tears Into Lady Gaga and ‘House of Gucci’

The Gucci family eviscerated Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, decrying how the legendary Italian family were depicted in the new film as “thugs, ignorant, and insensitive to the world around them.”

“This is extremely painful from a human point of view and an insult to the legacy on which the brand is built today,” the heirs of Aldo Gucci, who served as chairman of the Gucci label from 1953 to 1986, said in a joint statement released to Italian media and obtained by Variety on Monday.

They also ripped into Lady Gaga’s widely praised portrayal of Patrizia Reggiani, who was convicted of hiring a hitman to murder her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci in 1995, aghast at the filmmakers and cast painting the disgraced socialite “as a victim trying to survive in a male and male chauvinist corporate culture.”

“Gucci is a family that lives honoring the work of its ancestors, whose memory does not deserve to be disturbed to stage a spectacle that is untrue, and which does not do justice to its protagonists,” the statement added. “The members of the Gucci family reserves every right to protect the name, image and the dignity of their loved ones.”

House of Gucci, starring Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, and Salma Hayek, opened over the Thanksgiving holiday, earning $34 million across box offices worldwide.