Bossi family rows over reality spot
Firebrand Umberto won't let eldest go on celeb island
(ANSA) - Rome, July 10 - The son of one of Italy's political leaders has
appealed to his father to let him go on a celebrity island reality show.
Riccardo Bossi, a 25-year-old sometime university student and eldest son
of Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, told gossip mag Chi he was "dying" to
go on L'Isola dei Famosi, a version of the hit UK programme I'm A Celebrity Get
Me Out Of Here.
"My Dad was all for it but then he spoke to the head of the TV channel
and now he won't let me do it".
Umberto Bossi, 66, whose firebrand public performances have been more
muted since a stroke three years ago, told rival mag Gente: "My son Riccardo on
Isola dei Famosi? I'll kick his backside!" Bossi is a key ally of ex-premier
Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of Italy's centre-right opposition. The island
show featuring over-the-hill celebs, young hunks and babes shedding pounds and
performing scary tasks in skimpy garb is highly popular in Britain, Germany and
Italy. It has revived the careers of has-beens and provided breakthroughs for
semi-unknowns.
Season finales in all three countries dominated the ratings.
There was a shortlived US version of the show in 2003 but it flopped,
perhaps because of unhappiness at the hardships the alleged celebs were
expected to endure.
The shortness of the run staved off a lawsuit from the granddaddy of all
reality shows, Survivor, which involves ordinary people but claimed the island
format was a rip-off.
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2007-07-10_11097444.html
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