In an interview, the actress Paula Di Chello accused Gerardo Romano of having pushed her once morest the wall, kissed her and bit her lip until she bled, in a scene outside the script. According to his testimony, the incident occurred while they were recording a telenovela produced by Enrique Estevanez.
Although the situation took place several years ago, it only came to light this week. “Did you have any problems with Gerardo Romano?asked the host of the television cycle happy moms, Andy Chiarello, to his Alex Reed. And the response was overwhelming. After laughing nervously, Di Chello fired: “Yes. It was a disaster. A horror. And at that time you mightn’t talk regarding it.”he explained.
“We were in the recording of a novel by Quique Estevanez. They were the first chapters. Romano’s character had a tricky, dark clinic, and he was poisoning a millionaire lady, and I was his secretary”, he recalled. The fiction in question was love is said, broadcast by Telefe between 2005 and 2006. There, in fact, Romano composed Octavio Ocampo, one of the villains in the novel who held Juana Benegas (Silvia Kutika) captive in his own clinic. Di Chello’s character was Tania, Ocampo’s henchwoman.
“My character had to give these injections to hurt [a Juana]. And in one of the scenes, in a corridor, without it being scripted, he puts me once morest the wall, sticks a pacifier in me, bites my mouth and makes me bleed.”, recalled the actress. And she wondered: “The kiss, put it, but the bite until blood comes out of my lip… What need?”
“I have it recorded. And many times they told me that he should have filed a complaint… Because he distanced me a lot from the profession”, he explained. After what happened, according to what Di Chello said, Romano acted very strangely: “He told me I was a jerk. Surely I didn’t react as he expected… I let the scene continue because that’s what they tell you as an actor: until the director says ‘cut’ you can’t stop. I should have done”.
“That scene aired. It’s recorded. I haven’t had the opportunity to see him once more, but a few years ago if I had found him, I would have slapped him“, he claimed.
The actress also referred to the passivity of the directors, Hugo Alejandro Moser and Pablo Vásquez, and the producer, Estevanez, in the face of what happened. “No one said or did anything”. Faced with this situation, the actress decided to talk to her representative. “I told him that I was not going to be able to continue like this”.
“He was a very famous actor and I was not; he had a lot of experience and I didn’t. There was a power issue that was difficult to get around, too. I knew that if I made any kind of problem or complaint, they would kick me out… I made the decision to leave, but many times women don’t want to say so because they fire us, they cancel us. It’s something that keeps happening”, he explained.
Di Chello, who also participated in the cycles Ugly Duckling and in the movie a great sontogether with Julián Weich, among other jobs, and wrote several children’s books, continued his story: “Later, some actors told me: ‘Gerardo is like that, it’s his way of being’. Perhaps if he had told me: ‘Excuse me, I got out of hand; I didn’t think regarding it, it was an impulse’… And I think I saw him once more in a scene, but I went, I recorded, I didn’t even run into him and I left”.
However, according to what he said, this was not the only isolated event that he lived with his colleague: “He chased me through the corridors, he took out my cell phone, he said anything to me… He took the phone out of me when I talked to my mother and called her ‘mother-in-law’. As if it was normal. And surely, he must say: ‘I don’t even remember’. But luckily, it’s recorded”.
The incident occurred just a few years before Calu Rivero and Natalia Juncos will tell their experience with Juan Darthés in two fictions produced by Estevanezthat Anita Co made her story known and that the Collective of Actresses accompanied Thelma Fardin in her complaint of rape once morest the actor. “At that time nothing was said. It was: ‘You have a job, dear. Shut your mouth’. It’s not like now. Things changed and for many years of course I didn’t say anything”.
“That distanced me a bit from the profession. He made me reluctant. I was looking for what I wanted to do, where and with whom. I turned to work with children. My previous book was made into a movie. I would love to go back, but in another context”, explained Di Chello.
“Now I am saying it and I am trying to free him… The truth is that now, it has already prescribed, because it took a long time to file a legal complaint. If he crossed me, I would tell him “You took advantage of the situation. You are aggressive. You can’t treat women like that. You have to ask permission before doing something like that; speak it. You are not professional, and you think you can do anything without any consequences. And yes there are consequences. And if you don’t have them with me now, you’re going to have them in another way, “concluded the actress.
