Multimillionaire GIANLUCA VACCHI shares his OTT playboy lifestyle with 11 million followers. Liz Jones meets the man who’s more interested in posing in his pants than making money
Gianluca at his home in Milan
He’s Instagram’s greatest show-off. A 50-year-old Italian multimillionaire playboy and heir to a manufacturing empire who likes to pose in his pants revealing his tanned, toned, tattooed body on his yacht, in a white suit and mirrored shades aboard his private jet, or standing astride a motorbike at the bottom of a swimming pool in a pristine (if rather damp) Rubinacci suit.
Gianluca Vacchi is the man that readers of Mr Porter, Esquire et al probably aspire to be. And yet, when we meet in his apartment in Milan, in a lovely old building sandwiched between the Stella McCartney and Balenciaga stores, its plush, mostly red and purple velvet décor, he makes an astonishing confession. Despite working out for an hour and a half every day, he says, ‘I look in the mirror and think I’m fat. I never like myself in pictures or whatever. I’ve been very shy. I never had the courage to talk to girls.’
Yikes! So the Italian stallion is more of a gauche gelding! It turns out the man GQ described as having ‘a life in harmony with itself, every social media post aligned with his philosophy’ – explained by the word with which he ends many of his filmlets: ‘Enjoy!’ – is as riddled with self-doubt as the rest of us. In person, he is far from the arrogant, high-maintenance type one might expect – he didn’t even raise a perfectly groomed brow when I arrived late for our interview. Which makes me wonder why on earth he has chosen to open up his lifestyle to his 11 million-plus followers, 57 per cent of whom are women, 88 per cent between 18 and 45.
Gianluca with Cristiano Ronaldo and running with Zac Efron
‘I decided to start in June 2013,’ he says. ‘I realised I wasn’t old enough [he was 45] not to be interested in how the dialogue between young people was changing. A friend convinced me to open an Instagram account and the first photo was of me driving my boat. I always lived like I’m living now; I simply opened my life to everyone.’
He insists, despite the body dysmorphia (he’s trim and muscular and not fat at all, if rather short), that his photographs and videos, like those shades, exactly mirror his real life. ‘It is so natural for me. I never prepare; it’s totally spontaneous. Even in the street, if I want to take a picture, I take it.’
I ask who takes the pictures, as they are obviously not selfies, unless he has very long arms. ‘It is half and half. I started very late to do selfies. For a picture, I call a girl that is there [in Gianluca’s world, there is always “a girl that is there”] and say, “Take my picture” and that’s it.’
‘I look in the mirror and think I’m fat. I never like myself in pictures,’ says Gianluca
Does he regret any of the photos or videos? The one where he emerges from a cryotherapy chamber, clad only in Y-fronts and snow boots, and pretends to ride a horse, maybe? ‘I never regret what I do. I communicate without a mask, without a filter. My social media success is because people understand it’s really me. If it is invented, it doesn’t work. I have no secrets. There is nothing forbidden.’
While playboys in the years before social media lived out their gilded lives under the gaze of only a small coterie of friends and hangers-on, surely this new and constant exposure might well inspire envy, haters, burglars? ‘My followers could judge me in a negative way, but it hasn’t been like this. You can criticise something, or you can take it as an example and it can stimulate you: the line between the two is very thin.’
Does he feel guilty he has so much? ‘I absolutely don’t feel guilty. Feeling guilty is a waste of time. I try to help everybody, of course. But I’m not a role model. I just want to be myself and show people who I am. Young people in Europe are very spoilt because they come from generations that accumulated a lot of money. They don’t know what sacrifices were involved, and they’ve stopped bothering to dream,’ he says. ‘So what I am doing is stimulating them to dream that anything is possible. Why not become a DJ at 49, when your economic life has structure and satisfaction?’
Gianluca’s Instagram feed is awash with images of him posing pool- and beach-side
His philosophy might be disingenuous, his hashtag ‘Enjoy’, but is he truly happy? ‘Joy doesn’t come from things. It comes from the spirit.’ I always find it interesting when rich people say possessions don’t make you happy, I say. If that’s true, why buy them in the first place?
‘If you do things well, then maybe you can achieve success, you can buy things and you can share [it all] with friends. Of course you can be more joyful if you use nice things.
I was like this even when I was 20, travelling with just my skis and a rucksack, and I didn’t have this stuff.’ Still, his posts are funny and self-aware, a harmless escapist fantasy, like a James Bond film.
‘Ah!’ says Gianluca, ‘I’m going to be the next James Bond! I can even fly the helicopter. I can do everything; I don’t need the stuntman.’
I imagine he fears getting old, given the anti-ageing cryotherapy, but he dismisses any question of plastic surgery. ‘I have vitamin injections, that’s all. I am of course fighting against age, but age has two consequences: the physical one, which you can fight if you eat well and you train’ – although he’s frustrated that a knee injury means he hasn’t been able to work out for 25 days.
From his yacht to his private jet, Gianluca works his Insta-glam lifestyle to the max
‘The one that is scarier is when you get old in your brain. I am always looking for change; it is change that is keeping me alive,’ he reflects. ‘The last time I cried was at my 50th birthday. I was thinking about my life passing and I thought about my father and I started crying. Intelligent men, sensible men cry. Weak men don’t cry.’ A maid brings us two perfect espressos. Does he drink alcohol? ‘I drink sometimes. I will smoke once a year with a coffee.’
He was married for three years to a 31-year-old Italian model called Giorgia Gabriele. She can be seen in his posts, usually in a bikini; the one where they dance poolside to Ricky Martin went viral (13 million views and counting). I’m reminded of the Mrs Merton interrogation of Debbie McGee, ‘What first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?’
I imagine Gianluca’s self-penned job title, ‘life coach and DJ’ (‘I’m working on some new tracks; I grew up with music, my grandmother was a piano teacher’), would shrink the libido of any intelligent woman like salt on a slug. I’d expected him to be flirtatious, planting Latin kisses on both cheeks, but he comes across as quite serious; or perhaps this is because I’m not a supermodel in a thong, with buttocks like bowling balls.
‘I never regret what I do. I communicate without a filter,’ says Gianluca
How does he weed out the gold-diggers? ‘That’s a conventional stereotype into which I never fell. What you are is the result of your brain, your soul. I’ve never been scared of the fact a woman wanted to meet me because I had a boat or success. It’s normal. I’m interested in meeting people who have had success, but behind the success is a mind, there is charisma and then we talk and it doesn’t take long to see if a person is sincere or not.’
He’s right. Rich men aren’t just attractive because they have money: they have drive, ambition, confidence. But I wonder if his choices of beauty queens and supermodels is really working out for him, given he hasn’t found lasting love. Will he marry again, have children? ‘I don’t exclude it [marriage].’ He wants to pass on his genes, he says, ‘and I want to give my child my name. I told you before, in a relationship, what’s important is what you really feel.’
He says the best thing about social media is that it means ‘you can reach many people directly, like [rap star] Snoop Dogg. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to meet a rock star how would you do it? It wasn’t possible. How would he know that you exist? That is the good side of social media, beating down barriers.’
Me, my selfie and several thousand fans: Gianluca behind the decks at a DJ set
I’m sure if I placed a comment below a photo posted by Brad Pitt, inviting him to Yorkshire, he’d call the cops. But still. Gianluca’s most famous post is of him galloping hatless on a horse on a Sardinian beach next to Zac Efron. How is Zac these days? ‘We are still friends, of course, but not particularly close. I’m friends with many people.’
Does he interact with his less starry followers? ‘For the first 18 months I was answering any comment [under the posts]. I suffer from insomnia, so during the night I was watching my Instagram and answering all the questions. But it became too much: I have videos with 50,000 comments underneath them. I receive 1,000 messages a day. Now, I don’t answer anyone. I follow maybe 140 people. I’m interested in people who have something to communicate, or have a special life. I follow soccer players.’ I presume because, like Gianluca, they work and play hard and are unafraid to say they use fake tan.
He dismisses the perceived negatives of a life lived so publicly. ‘I have chosen to be on social media, so the loss of privacy is my choice. The negative part would be young people looking for a shortcut in life. When I was young and I was in love with a girl I had to get her home phone number and I was scared that the father would answer. When I wanted to give a kiss I had to ask. You need culture, you need to read, you need language. You have to know how to listen, how to seduce, and those skills today are under threat because young people have lost the habit of having real contact with a person.’
Gianluca is the son of a billionaire from Bologna, northern Italy, who built his fortune designing and manufacturing machines used for packing pharmaceuticals and for food production. Gianluca’s ‘middle-class, bourgeois family – it wasn’t a very privileged childhood’, was allegedly involved in the 2003 Parmalat scandal, which led to the collapse of one of the country’s biggest dairy companies, leaving a £9.8 billion black hole.
His father, who died in 2001, when Gianluca was 33, was ‘very severe. He wanted me to study.’ He was already aware of his son’s peacock tendencies, ‘but he was proud,’ says Gianluca. ‘He told me that as soon as I graduated, I could do want I wanted.’
His mother is still alive but the relationship is ‘not as strong as the one I had with my father: I was so fascinated by my father, but maybe my mother deserves more [from me]. She is a strong woman, and now has a big fight with cancer.’
He admits, ‘I don’t feel so much the blood relationship. I feel the relationship that I choose, with friends.’ Although his younger brother (who is not involved in the family business at all) is, he says, ‘like a son to me’.
Gianluca avoided the family business for a while, earning a living as a professional skier until he was 18 (‘I was like a soldier, very serious about sport’), when he was reeled in by his father and went on to study at the University of Bologna. He tells me he had an epiphany after ‘20 years of hard work’, and decided that to continue in the company was not for him.
‘My approach towards it was that it belongs to the suppliers, employees. The family just takes care of it. I asked myself, am I the right manager for this company? I was living in the financial world until I was 45, 46. It was very stressful.
I can manage a stressful life, but it has to teach me something. It’s difficult for me to be seated at a desk, I need to move. I’m not interested in routine.’ He admits he’s a yes man, and has to hire managers to say no for him. ‘I’m not interested in accumulating a fortune: I want to be in the Fortune magazine ranking of the bank account of “moments”.’
His net worth is around £350 million, with an annual income of £15 million (his own ventures in sunglasses and watches have had mixed fortunes). How many homes does he have? He has to think for a bit, and use his fingers. ‘I have this one, one in Bologna, one in the mountains, one in Miami…six houses.’ His favourite? ‘The one where I have the most serene moments is in Sardinia; that is the one with the most memories.’
I bring up the fact that earlier this year came news he was experiencing financial problems, with one of his yachts being seized by a bank, which prompted hilarious Instagram posts of doppelgänger silver foxes posing on pedalos and accusations that he’s living a billionaire lifestyle when he’s ‘only’ a millionaire. ‘I have a lawsuit with the bank because they applied the wrong interest rate on an account.
‘It’s a little debt [the figure has been put at £9.5 million] in respect of what I have.’ Stressful? ‘I’ve had many moments of panic. I always try to keep the smile on my face but I wasn’t born like this. I had to achieve this position.’ I’m guessing the position he means is one where he is free to have fun and enjoy himself.
Our interview draws to a close, and I remove my jacket for our picture together, revealing a tattoo on my biceps. Gianluca takes me on a journey of his own inkings, from the profile of his father on his ribcage to a letter from his mother over his heart: ‘I got the first one when I was 33.’
He is wearing so much jewellery, as well as a large watch (and a lot of ankle bracelets, one so wide I thought he was on house arrest), that it must take him hours to get through security at the airport but, silly me, private jets probably don’t have conveyor belts and plastic trays.
Gianluca with Liz Jones
I find his beard jewellery – a cluster of stones securing his goatee – a little off-putting. Where did he get that idea to do that? ‘It’s a luxury version of Johnny Depp’s in Pirates of the Caribbean.’
We pose, and I imagine it must be strange for Gianluca to be photographed next to a fully dressed woman who isn’t what the tabloids might call a ‘mystery topless brunette’. I bring up, again, the fact he feels fat, unattractive. Are his photos and videos not making his fans feel that way, too? ‘It’s a stimulant, not a pressure. You know how many men in their 50s are watching me and saying, “Why is he in such good shape?”
‘I don’t have a programme, I don’t have a trainer. I am critical of myself in everything. If I were not as critical, maybe I would weigh five kilos more. I am critical because I want to improve.’