Do You Remember: When Fabio Was Hit In the Face By a Flying Goose While Riding a Rollercoaster?

It’s the mad-libs of celebrity gossip. You’re either baffled by the title of this piece or instantly remember every ridiculous detail of this bananas incident. That image of the beefcake Italian romance novel cover star all bloodied up as toga-clad women on either side of him wonder what the hell just happened is too ridiculous for mere fiction. Truly, that goose made history.

Before romance novels were known for their cutesy cartoon covers and vague stock images with filters on top, Fabio Lanzoni was the king of the bodice-ripper. The Italian model had moved to America and almost instantly become a sought-after model thanks to his tall and muscular physique, square jaw, and long flowing hair. In 1987, he modelled for the cover of Hearts Aflame by Joanna Lindsey, a classic of the era that features Vikings, the heroine disguised as a boy, and too much plot. Fabio realized he'd become famous from this cover when several women approached him over this one book.

(Image via Goodreads.)

Eventually, he started to become a regular for romance novels of the era. He did a lot of covers where his shirt was half-open, his hair was blowing Beyonce-style in the wind, and he was holding the heroine with a mixture of ferocity and tenderness. He truly exemplified the genre of that time, where alphas ruled and "no" frequently meant "yes." Eventually, he did calendars, bookstore appearances, a spoken word album, and even "wrote" his own romance novels. You might have spotted him in the background of The Exorcist III or advertising I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! Sex symbols for women were hardly rare in the mainstream but a guy getting this level of famous from romance novel covers really felt like a sign of the times and how this oft-ridiculed market was dominating publishing.

Fabio was not above a quick payday. That's what led him to come face to face with the goose. In 1999, Busch Gardens in Williamsburg opened its brand new rollercoaster, Apollo's Chariot. Since Fabio had one of those profiles that looked like one you'd see on a Grecian coin, he was invited to sit in the front row for the inaugural ride. Accompanying him would be a reported 35 women dressed like Greek goddesses. It all seemed perfectly innocent. The hair would flow freely and Fabio would enjoy a free ride on a rollercoaster.

But when the rollercoaster returned to its platform, the right side of his face was covered in blood and he looked, understandably, pissed off. The women on each side of him looked both confused and a tad exhilarated. What had happened?!

(Image via YouTube.)

Initial reporting alleged that Fabio was hit in the face by a goose. On a 2021 podcast appearance, Fabio claimed that, as the coaster reached its optimum speed of 73 miles per hour, one of “hundreds” of estimated geese “got sucked in.” What hit him wasn't a bird but a piece of the video camera attached to the front of the coaster. That's what then hit Fabio and cut the bridge of his nose. "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.

The only video that exists was filmed from the ride entrance. We know that Busch Gardens had that camera there, presumably for promotional footage, but it's never surfaced. Perhaps if Fabio had sued the company then it would have emerged, but he never did. As he said in that podcast episode, "No, it’s principle. I did my job. I'm not going to sue them. I took the job. I signed that contract.”

The goose, by the way, died. Esquire wrote in 2021 that the goose incident signalled a shift in Fabio's career and how the culture perceived him. He was already the subject of easy jokes because he was seen as the face of a genre for middle-aged women, but now, the goose jokes were everywhere. "Despite his stoic good humor about the incident and his relatively negligible physical injuries, Fabio was irrevocably hurt. Nobody would ever take him quite as seriously again." This piece is a bit glib, yes, but it does get at something. As we discussed in our issue on Richard Gere and the gerbil rumour, when a famous man is heralded for his attractiveness towards women, he often finds himself the butt of misogynistic and homophobic jokes.

The saga of Fabio and the goose became pop culture lore for a reason. It’s so utterly surreal that it feels like a Tim and Eric joke years before they ever became a thing. How often does anything like this happen? How frequently do you hear about goose-related rollercoaster collisions on the nightly news? We can laugh at this because Fabio mercifully escaped with minimal injuries but think about how much worse this could have been. Being hit in the face by a literal goose would probably have killed him. The legendary Bobby Fingers made one of the greatest forensic investigations turned art projects you’ll ever see, figuring out if a goose would have decapitated Fabio had it flown at him at its average speed. The answer was pretty much yes.

Fabio sporadically did romance covers through the early 2000s but the genre moved away from those classic beefcake covers, or at least moved onto younger models. He did host a reality TV show called Mr. Romance, which was apparently like America’s Next Top Model but for romance covers, and I need to find it and watch every episode. Fabio became an American citizen in 2016 and now seems to spend a lot of time appearing on right-wing cable news shows. Huh. Okay.

Personally, I kind of miss the beefcake covers. At the very least, I wish we had more bestsellers in the genre with some classic cover art. I feel like the cartoons and cutesy TikTok-friendly aesthetic can often be infantilising and lead to some false advertising. I have seen multiple very spicy titles listed in the YA section of my local bookshop because the covers looked so youth-oriented. I wonder how many readers find the more obvious covers too embarrassing to read in public. That’s understandable, but come on, let’s embrace the filth for a change. Birds optional.