Inside football’s most ridiculous divorce as exes war over ‘affairs’, bald cat and ‘secrets that would ruin 50 families’
NORMALLY bags are chucked out the window when a couple break up, but legendary striker Francesco Totti has taken his TV star wife’s designer ones hostage.
It is the latest bizarre act in the increasingly acrimonious divorce of Italy's version of Posh and Becks.
They had been a golden couple, with Totti scoring 250 goals for Roma and winning the World Cup for his country, while his wife Ilary Blasi presented hit shows such as Italy's version of I'm a Celebrity and Big Brother.
Former model and actress Blasi, 41, and Totti, 46, are so famous that their wedding was broadcast live on television.
But cracks in their 17-year marriage started to show during lockdown.
Totti admitted he nearly left his wife when she bought a hairless cat and when restrictions were lifted rumours of affairs started to circulate.
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He was said to be seeing a much younger florist, while she was reported to have fallen for a tattooed man.
Having decided to go their separate ways in July, Blasi decided to take Totti's beloved Rolex watches and he supposedly responded by holding on to her designer shoes and handbags.
He told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera: "What could I do? I hid her handbags, hoping we could trade.”
The glamorous bags in his custody are said to include Gucci, Dior, Chanel and Hermès plus shoes which are worth up to £3,500.
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Press reports say Blasi has asked a judge to order Totti to return her collection.
Naked ambition?
Blasi caused a stir in 2006 when she flashed a nipple during the Sanremo Song Fest and five years ago by snogging her Big Brother co-presenter Belen Rodriguez.
She also posed topless in her early career and worked as a catwalk model.
Totti was dubbed the Roman God due to his good looks and he once boasted: "I was 12 when I made love for the first time. In Tropea, with a Roman girl who was 17 years old."
I was 12 when I made love for the first time
Francesco Totti
He has been the butt of jokes about his lack of intelligence after a journalist suggested the player "carpe diem?" and Totti replied: "Sorry, my English isn't very good."
Carpe diem is a well known Latin phrase which means seize the day.
Eventually, he saw the funny side and agreed to publish a book called All the Totti Jokes, Collected by Me, which sold 150,000 copies in just two weeks.
Two years ago a documentary was made about the striker called My Name Is Francesco Totti, which presented him as a largely untroubled athlete and lauded him for never leaving top Italian side Roma.
Covid breakdown
His loyalty to Blasi also appeared to be concrete, having spent 20 years together.
They tied the knot in June 2005 in an ancient church in Rome with a satellite channel reporting on the event live.
Blasi was pregnant with their first child, 17-year-old Cristian, at the time and they now also have two daughters Chanel, 15, and Isabel, six.
However, Covid restrictions undermined the family unit - first due to a feline interloper.
In 2020 he revealed: “I was furious with my wife, she bought a hairless cat and called it Donna Paola.
“It's boiling. At night, it insists on sleeping inside our bed, next to our legs. She's a very affectionate cat, but almost caused us to break up.
I was furious with my wife, she bought a hairless cat
Francesco Totti
“Ilary wanted a cat at all costs and I was adamant we shouldn't. One day, she brought it home, because ultimately she makes all the decisions in this family.
“We didn't speak for days, but in the end, I fell in love with the cat too.”
Then his dad Ezno died from the virus at the age of 76 in October 2020 and Totti spiralled into depression.
He told a newspaper: "I have lived through a difficult period, first because I stopped playing and then my father died due to Covid.
"I also had strong Covid for 15 days. However, my wife, when I needed her most, was not there."
Rumours of affairs
Totti claims that friends informed him that his wife was seeing another man, so he decided to scour her phone for evidence.
He said: “When I received warnings from different people, whom I trust, I began to suspect.
"I looked at her cell phone and I saw that there was a third person, who acted as an intermediary between Ilary and another.
"Here was the evidence. And that led me to depression.”
He is now dating florist Noemi Bocchi, 34.
Ilary dated other men before my story with Noemi was born
Francesco Totti
But he insists they only began to see each other romantically once his relationship with Blasi was over.
Totti alleged: "We used to hang out as friends. Ilary dated other men before my story with Noemi was born."
So far Blasi has not spoken publicly about the cheating rumours
But she has said: "I've discovered things that would ruin 50 families."
The couple are expected to agree to share custody of their children.
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Whether they can come to an agreement about their bling is another matter.
One insider said: "All she has to do is return the watches and this is over."
