" My faith, my friends, and my older children helped and protected me . I fell to the ground and tried to get up again for them." These are Raoul Bova's words, ahead of his return to TV on January 8th with Don Matteo 15, 10 new episodes of one of Rai's longest-running series.

"After this summer's media storm," the actor explains, referring to Fabrizio Corona's revelations about his alleged relationship with model Martina Ceretti, which included the release of audio and private messages—a matter that has led to an investigation into attempted extortion—" someone wrote 'Bova kicked out of Rai1 in Don Matteo.' Luckily, the producers, from Matilde Bernabei of Lux Vide to Vincenzo Valerio Fiorespino of Fremantle, were not involved in this fake news."

"It almost seemed like something organized to destabilize this giant Don Matteo," Bova continued. "And since I respect this series and its audience, after reading certain things I even said: I'm taking a step back, I'm abandoning my character and Don Matteo." The idea—as he added in an interview with TV Sorrisi e Canzoni—could have been to " have Don Massimo suddenly die to exit the scene ." "But they told me it was ridiculous," the actor explains.

"The fact is," Bova adds, " I was treated in this affair like a criminal, the worst of men, a murderer, but I paid the price alone, despite not backing down an inch and reporting the blackmail." But above all, "I am a man who considers himself honest. I have always lived from my work, I love my children, I respect people, I do good. Then we all make mistakes, we are careless, we lose our way. Even Don Massimo will come to ask himself questions, this season, because he was a Carabiniere who became a priest after watching people die. Ghosts from the past will return, but his faith is unshakeable. Like mine."

And on how Bova emerged from the ordeal, "you obviously get back up," the actor said. "You don't even know how, what makes you get back up: it's definitely a survival instinct, and also a sense of injustice and a desire for justice that makes you hope somehow that what happened to you might not happen again."

(Unioneonline/vl)

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