The Italian television event of the year was spiced up by the battle between showgirls Elisabetta Canalis and Belen Rodriguez.
While your standard Italian showgirl here in Italy, Canalis has been launched into the international scene by her relationship with George Clooney.
Apart from the 2011 Sanremo festival playing on the attractiveness of the two ladies, the couple were required to actually do something every so often in a kind of ongoing talent quest throughout the show.
Elisabetta Canalis doesn’t enjoy huge popularity here in Italy and apart from the handbag factor, many Italians wonder what a man like George Clooney is doing with the girl.
But what do the Americans think about Canalis, especially after her performances at the 2011 Sanremo festival?While she is an attractive girl, the indignity of Canalis’ dancing and the now infamous interview with Robert de Niro (video after the jump) have done her no favours in Italy or abroad, for that matter.
While overseas, Canalis has been elevated to professions of model, actress and dancer, to us in Italy she is just a showgirl.
One comment on JustJared about Canalis’ Just a Boy dance at Sanremo summarises thus: Honestly I think the saddest thing is that an academy award winner man in his fifties keeps on dating younger and insignificant women like elisabetta or that las vegas waitress… we all know here in italy that elisabetta is just a good looking girl that can’t really do anything and unfortunately that’s the only reason she’s on tv.
And that just about sums it up.
For her part, according to Gossipblog.
it, Elisabetta Canalis has said of her efforts at Sanremo and the De Niro interview:“I’m promoting myself.
I really had fun at Sanremo, I would have liked it to last a month.
I’m satisfied with the interview I did with Robert De Niro, for which I have also been described as ‘embarrassing’: even on the David Letterman show.
De Niro used monosyllables to reply and I managed to make him open up a little.
And then I was extremely nervous – I was in front of my idol.
”Leaving aside questions of when De Niro became Elisabetta Canalis’ idol, you can judge the interview for yourself in the video below.