An Italian pop star has apologized after seemingly losing his cool during a live television performance on Tuesday night and trashing the stage.
Blanco was a special guest on the first night of the 73rd Sanremo Music Festival song contest on public broadcaster Rai. (He won the competition last year with Mahmood for their song “Brividi.”)
Only seconds into his performance of “L’isola Delle Rose” (“Island of Roses”), the 19-year-old could be seen struggling with his in-ear monitors.
As his frustration grew, Blanco began kicking at roses that decorated the stage. Eventually he stopped singing and started picking up flats of flowers and throwing them around. At one point, he slipped and fell backwards onto the stage.
“I couldn’t hear my voice,” Blanco explained at the end of the song, adding that he “tried to have fun anyway.”
The hissy fit earned Blanco jeers from the live audience and plenty of criticism on social media from some of the show’s estimated 10 million viewers.
Italian actress Serena Autieri tweeted that Blanco’s behaviour was “not at all respectful towards the Festival as an institution and the public who prefer a good song to a sterile exercise in devastation that seemed driven by unjustified and in any case out of place anger.”
On Wednesday, Blanco took to Instagram to share an image of a handwritten poem that he captioned: “I apologize to the city of flowers.”
Blanco, whose real name is Riccardo Fabbriconi, topped Italy’s charts in 2021 with “La canzone nostra” and “Mi fai impazzire.” His debut album Blu celeste was released last year.