The PEOPLE in the ‘90s podcast closed out its first season in marble-chested, luxuriously locked fashion with a one-hour conversation with Fabio, the one-time model for romance paperback covers and spokesperson for America’s most literally named margarine. During the chat, the Milan-born hunk and fitness coach once again touched upon an incident that will forever be part of his legacy.
In 1999, Fabio, whose full name is Fabio Lanzoni, was hired by Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia to inaugurate their new Apollo’s Chariot rollercoaster in the appropriately named Festa Italia section of the amusement park. On the climb up, Fabio was all smiles. On the way down, his face (his beautiful face!) was covered in blood.
The legend goes that as the ride zoomed over a pond, Fabio came in direct contact with a goose, but as he explains it on the podcast, this isn’t exactly true. As the coaster did turns and flips at high speeds, one of “hundreds” of estimated geese “got sucked in.” The doomed bird actually hit a video camera, which then broke into many pieces. One such piece cut Fabio on the bridge of his nose and “because then it was all the rest of the ride after I was cut upside down, of course, the blood rushes to your head,” he said.
He also downplayed the severity of his injury. “They thought, ‘Oh my God, it was like a broken nose and this and that,’” he said. “My nose wasn’t broken. You know how big was the cut? One stitch.”
Ambulance chasing lawyers tried to convince him to sue, he said. (“Fabio, that’s going to be the first easy four or $5 million in your life.”) But Fabio, a man of virtue, demurred. “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.’”
Other episodes on the PEOPLE in the ‘90s podcast include conversations with Tori Spelling, Darius Rucker, and Margaret Cho.
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