By the early aughts, Fabio was easy to make fun of — he knows this. And he’s been in on the joke, appearing inZoolanderandSharknado 5. (Things he’s said no to over the years: Viagra ads, Disney’sTarzan, andDancing With the Stars.) He remains pretty comfortable in his own never Botox-ed or filler-ed skin. “You can’t take life seriously,” Fabio, now 62, says on thePEOPLE in the ’90s podcast. “You’ll be a miserable bastard if you take your life seriously. Let’s have some fun. Let’s laugh. I feel sorry sometimes for all these comedians. Now they have to be so politically correct. I mean life, it some time can be very harsh. Some time it can be beautiful. But you know, life is truth. Don’t get so sensitive.”
So yeah, Fabio knows today people mostly know him for “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.” To this he shrugs, points out it ranfor 24 yearsthen points to his $100 million collection of sports cars. (He also casually mentions he’s been told some people use the product as… sexual lubricant.) One thing Fabio won’t laugh about: that time a goose hit his face on a rollercoaster.
Steve Earley/Virginian-Pilot/AP
“So the rollercoaster goes down at 80 miles an hour, 80, 85 miles an hour, over a pond and back up, and then upside down. So when it came down and went over the pond at like 80, 85 miles an hour. So what happened is, over the pond there was a bunch of geese there. I’m talking about hundreds. And one got sucked in. I saw this very up close. The geese hit the video camera. What happened, the goose hit the video camera. The video camera shattered. At 85 miles per hour.”
Fabio.Jeff Minton
Fabio was rushed to the hospital. “They thought, ‘Oh my God, it was like a broken nose and this and that.’ They thought, because all the blood. My nose wasn’t broken. You know how big was the cut? One stitch.”
The lawyers began circling. “Now, let me tell you, during that time, every single law firm in America, three or four of the big law firms, they come up to me and say, ‘Fabio, that’s going to be the first easy four or $5 million in your life.’ I said, ‘No.'” Fabio says he took full responsibility. “No, no. I said, ‘No, it’s principle. I did my job. I’m not going to sue them. I took the job. I signed that contract.'”
But a mystery remains. “And I tell you, you know the camera,” Fabio says. “My manager at that time, he said, ‘Oh, let’s see the video footage.’ Well the camera is never to be found. The tape disappeared. It never was found.”
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.
For more about Fabio Lanzoni, pick up the latest issue ofPEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.
source: people.com
