Salvatore Palumbo, the undertaker with a passion for song, known by the nickname 'o cardillo (the goldfinch), attacked on social media after appearing to sing on a hearse a few days ago, has opened up about his experiences these days. "I'm living a nightmare," confesses the funeral director in downtown Naples. "I made a mistake, I apologize, and I'm ashamed. But I truly heard things that weren't true at all." Salvatore is upset. In recent days, when the video of him singing with the coffin behind him went viral on social media, he had to delete himself from Facebook. "I repeat, I made a mistake, but I've heard so many untrue things about myself that have hurt me and my family. The first is that the coffin seen in the video wasn't full. There were no dead people in that hearse. It was supposed to be a joke, a game I now regret, which caused me so many problems," says a visibly upset Salvatore Palumbo. "I lost a young son," he says, almost in tears, "and I know what the pain of separation means." Palumbo also explains how the idea of singing in that hearse was born. "Some colleagues said to me, 'Let's make a video of you singing.' I agreed, and I was wrong, but no one should keep saying there was a dead person there. If that were the case, relatives would have been behind the car. And do you think it's possible that I was singing just a few meters away from people crying? That video was supposed to be a joke. They told me they deleted it, but it wasn't true. I was the victim of an infamy. And I am paying for this mistake, along with my family and my children," Palumbo explains. It's precisely for his children that Palumbo decided to put his face on the line: "In the past few days, I've been subjected to insults, even death threats. My children, reading this, asked me, 'Dad, what have you done?' I'm ashamed of having made this mistake, but at least let the truth be told. Let things be told as they are. That wagon wasn't full; I didn't disrespect anyone who died."
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