Photo: Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Today we know Fabio as the king of romance, the guy who appeared on more than 1,300 steamy novels throughout the ’90s. He posed as a pilot, a pirate, a cowboy and a winged angel. (He also played the pope inSharknado 5.) But, as he tellsJason SheelerandAndrea Lavinthalon the season finale ofPEOPLE in the ’90s, “I can only be Fabio.”
But Fabio enjoyed the work—and the parties that were part of the fashion industry—until a night out with friends changed his life.
“I saw my best friend overdose from heroin,” Fabio says. “I found him dead in the bathroom.” He was 16 at the time. The experience was so shocking that he never touched drugs or alcohol again. Instead he started getting high in a different way: “My drug became endorphins, like working out.”
During his required military service in Italy, he thought about his future. He had worked for Versace and other Italian brands, but he wanted more and set out for the U.S. “If you’re famous in the United States, you’re famous all over,” he explains.
He moved to New York in 1987. On day one he secured an agent at the elite Ford Models. Day two: He booked a campaign for the Gap, for a fee of $175,000. He called to tell his father the good news, but before he could get a word in, his dad said, “I’m not going to give you money, so just come back home” and hung up.
Fabio kept trying to make his dad proud. He asserts he was the first male supermodel; he says at one point making more thanCindy Crawford. He became the face of Versace’s Mediterraneum fragrance in the early ’90s.
“The Versace campaign was extremely successful at that time,” Fabio says, “because it was the biggest contract a model— not just a male model, amodel— ever got. So I got a contract even bigger than Cindy Crawford and the rest of the female models.”
Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Fabio says he remembers the details of the job.
“It was a multi-multi-million dollar contract, plus 6% of the growth, of sell.” It was a huge success. “When I started advertising, all of a sudden it became one of the best colognes out there. I was doing appearances: 15,000, 18,000, 20,000 people were showing up outside of Saks Fifth Avenue.”
But Fabio says he was never fully paid. He says the lateGianni Versaceowed him money. “Big time. A million,” Fabio asserts. “You know, unfortunately Versace wasn’t a very honest man, God bless his soul, but the truth is the truth. He wasn’t a very honest person.” (Representatives for the Versace brand had no comment.)
Rick Maiman/Sygma via Getty
By 1993 Fabio was everywhere: onDavid Letterman,Regis and Kathie Lee, on the cover ofPeople. “That’s when my dad finally said, ‘I am proud of you,’ " he recalls. That affirmation “meant more than anything, more than becoming famous, more than money, more than anything.”
He also headlined dozens of romance novel conventions around the country, at which thousands of women would line up to meet and pose for a photo with him. He remembers some groping. “Pinching my butt, that’s inappropriate,” he says. “But listen, I’m from Europe, I’m a man, I can handle it.” (Donnamaie White, the president of the Fabio Fan Club, who attended many of the conventions, remembers, “He was such a gentleman. That’s what we all wanted from him.")
Sometimes he got requests to sign women’s breasts, underwear, and, ahem, other body parts. He obliged. “Whatever floats your boat,” he says with a shrug. “There’s a time to make some money. Then have some fun. Then make some money again.”
For more from Fabio and other ’90s icons, listen toPEOPLE in the ‘90soniHeartMedia,Apple podcasts,Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. New episodes drop Thursday mornings.
source: people.com
