Aitana Ocaña is extremely famous. One could say that she is one of the most famous people in Spain, although she doesn’t entirely agree with this opinion. “Thank you very much, but I guess it depends who you ask,” she says while eating some meatballs from the caterer after getting her hair and makeup done for the photoshoot.
Actually we did just that, ask around. And there doesn’t seem to be anyone who doesn’t know who Aitana is. Where they know her from is something else. It can be “the singer”, “the one from OT”, “the one from La Voz Kids” or even “Yatra’s girlfriend”. But the unequivocal conclusion is that Aitana is currently Spain’s girlfriend. And also the daughter, the older sister and even the straight friend who accompanies you to a party in Chueca.
His fame spans generations. The twenty-somethings know her from the Operación Triunfo. Those over 40 with children know many of their songs because, they tell me, their pre-adolescent offspring love them. Their favorites, they say, are: Butterflies, 78 million listeners on Spotify; Formentera, 137 million, and most notably Mon Amour (Remix), 552 million. Yes, that’s right: 552 million. My 74-year-old mother, a devoted reader of gossip magazines, told me about her sentimental life. “She was dating Miguel Bernardeau and now she is dating Sebastián Yatra. Let’s see, they are very discreet and have not officially confirmed it, but everyone knows. On the same morning of the interview, a friend plans, among other things, to go to an Aitana-style drag queens party in Madrid. “She’s very popular in the LGTBQ+ community,” she says. “Oh really? Aitana topic? I can’t believe it. Where is? When? I want to go! I have to go!” near Madrid, which she uses as a dressing room.
“I try to go to therapy at least once a month. You get to know what happens to you,” says Aitana, who is pictured wearing a Givenchy dress and bra, Gucci sandals, an adjustable gold seal, a gold ring. Set of three gold rings with white zircons and gold earrings by PDPAOLA.Javier Biosca
In the end, he didn’t go to the drag party. She was in another club with her friends. It is known because he uploaded photos to Instagram. Of his 3.6 million followers, 305,000 liked him. When she’s not posting on IG, just type “Aitana” into Google to get all the details of her life. If this happened on the morning of the interview, the first 15 results spoke of the news of the day: he cut his hair. A magazine added that Sebastián Yatra “reacted immediately”. “Unfortunately, my personal life is something that draws too much attention from everyone,” she says. “I often ask myself: What have I done? Because I’ve never been the kind of person to reveal my private life like that. There are people who are very, very well known, much better known than me – my thing is national and by and by – who I really don’t feel have that much interest in their private lives. I understand but I don’t know. I don’t know what’s there, why do people want to know what’s going on in my life.” It seems that with this level of control, living a normal life doesn’t have to be easy. “I don’t think so. I like to live a completely normal life. Too normal, actually. I love going to the supermarket every other day to shop, walking around Fuencarral and strolling down the street at leisure. There are days when where nothing happens and others where it can get a bit more chaotic. It depends on the moment. The best thing is when I meet people on the street because they talk to you personally. They are also not very pushy, they stop just open up and say, “I don’t want to bother you, but you know that me and my boyfriend love you” or something like that.”
There is no reason to delude yourself. No matter how well he tries to camouflage it with his upbeat character, the pressure has taken its toll on him. For example, he had to move from central Madrid to the outskirts. “He used to live downtown, but this phase was complicated because people finally found out where he was from. I had a lot of people at the door of my house and it was dangerous. It was not for nothing that very nice people came. But it’s at night… at your house… and you’re like, oh, I don’t know how sensible that is. I think this period of my life requires me to live in the middle. I’m 23 years old and that’s how I feel. NO? But I also need to be a little coherent with what’s happening to me. And I have to keep myself safe somehow.”
Aitana, who already has 15 number one finishes in Los40, wears a Prada dress, white gold earrings with diamonds and a silver pendant with a Suarez topaz stone. Javier Biosca
All of this might make one forget that Aitana is commercially huge based on the numbers alone. There is one very remarkable fact. In five years she has become the Spanish soloist who has collected the most number one numbers on the Los40 list, the channel that has always shaped the tastes of Spanish audiences. He sits sixth overall in Los40 history, just one spot behind David Bisbal. In addition, his last tour sold 250,000 tickets, more than double the previous one. He has starred in the Disney+ series The Last One and directed a film for Netflix, scheduled for release in 2025. And his songs have more than 1,000 million listeners on Spotify. He plays in this league, ladies and gentlemen.
“I’m 23 years old,” is the mantra he keeps repeating, as if suddenly realizing he’s young and it’s time to have fun. You worked a lot to be here. Less than six years ago, Aitana was just a 17-year-old girl about to start a design degree, the daughter of an accountant. He lived in Sant Climent de Llobregat, a town of 4,000 people in the greater Barcelona area. Suddenly the Operación Triunfo crossed his life. “I think I’ve always sung on the inside. I have a video of about six years old and no tooth singing a song to my dad in made up English. But no one paid much attention to me either. I didn’t do it myself. It was for fun and that’s it. I started singing at family gatherings when I was 12. But I never got up and said: I want to be a singer. Never because I didn’t think it was possible. It was unreal. I don’t know, when the OT ad came out when I was 17, something happened. It was like I saw her the whole time. I don’t believe in energy so much that everything happens for a reason. But why did I see the ad every time I passed the dining room? For me who hasn’t watched TV. I don’t know. And that’s when I said to my dad: Hey, maybe it would be cool if I signed up for it. My dad freaked out because I never wanted to sign up for anything. And he said, “Really?” If you want to, we’d love to, because we think you have the potential. I think I made my decision there. I never suggested it. I never said, “I’m going to be a singer and I’m going to be the best.”
His third album “Alpha” will be released in autumn. “A commitment to having a good time,” says the singer, who wears a Dolce & Gabbana top, Prada cotton boxers and Dolce & Gabbana boots.Javier Biosca
In 2017, the return of Operación Triunfo was a great success for TVE. Almost at the same level as the first of 2001, that of Bustamante, Bisbal and Rosa. And one of the keys to success was changing the profile of the participants. In the first phase, interpreters were sought, as empty and obedient as possible, to fill them in the academy. When they left, their future was forced upon them. Careers that seemed modeled after the light music singers of the 1970s. But in 2017 there was a generational portrait: they were young demonstrators, with a social conscience, without complexes, fluent in languages and with a modern discourse on gender and sexuality. In this environment, Aitana seemed to have two great weapons: quick to learn and liking. Never underestimate the power of sympathy: she had never sung seriously, she had never performed in public or composed anything, but within a few months she was the one who gained the most followers on social media. And reached the final. With Amaya. They were the same age, but they seemed to be two sides of the same coin. Amaia was the artist, the one with underground flavor. Aitana was the commercial model intended for the general public. “I am a person who likes everything. I mean I enjoy everything. I come from a family like Verbena. I intend to listen to everything, absolutely everything. When they play me the typical songs like…, I don’t know…, Paquito the chocolatier, I have a great time, but when they play electronic music without vocals like now, I also have a great time. Or reggaeton. Or flamingos. My father has listened to Los Chichos and Los Chunguitos all his life and I love them. I think I’m very simple.
“I think I’ve always sung on the inside. I have a video of me singing a song in made-up English to my father at six years old and toothless,” Aitana recalls. Styled here with a dress by Coperni, white gold, diamond and sapphire earrings by Suarez and a bag by Acne.Javier Biosca
Amaia won, but after the broadcast, Aitana exceeded all expectations. First he swept with Lo Malo, his demi-song, with another contestant, Ana Guerra. He signed with multinational company Universal and in July 2018 his debut song, Telephone, was released. He swept again. EL PAÍS told it the following day: “Aitana’s Telephone video clip is viewed more than a million times in just a few hours.” Since then, he has released two studio albums: Spoiler (2019) and 11 Reasons (2020). A Direct Play Tour (2020); a soundtrack, La última (2022), and twenty singles, many with guests. Everything it touches turns to gold. But for many it is a finished product. A few weeks ago, in the latest oral argument between rag pickers over who was more real, Yung Beef, the incarnation of the street trap in Spain, told BB Trickz, a recently arrived teenager, “You’re not a street person, you’re not a gypsy.” I am pure beef; you, Aitana’s menu”. In September 2021, Aitana participated in a McDonald’s campaign with a menu bearing her name. Days after launch, she confessed she could never eat it: she was celiac.
She defends that she set her course from the start. “I was always clear about everything from the start. Times have changed a lot. I don’t know how OT was before, I have no idea, but now you don’t have to be the best singer, now you have to have something.” Personality? “Not just personality, be creative. Now the song must be different. There are so many songs by so many artists. What do you contribute as a singer or artist? let it be different How does someone who has never composed ever manage to do that? “You also learn to compose. Before I was 18, I hardly wrote any songs. I remember writing two. In English, above. And what they did to me, and I’m very grateful to my company, was to take me to Los Angeles for a month when I left OT to compose with different producers. And for me it was a scratch because I said: I don’t know if I can compose. It was like this: With every producer you sit there for a whole day and see what comes out of it. And from that came three songs. No longer. And I was there for 30 days because it started. Not all the songs he made were worth it. In fact, most were worthless. But I really appreciated it. It wasn’t, “We want a song now and we want you to get it out now.” It was, “Let’s see what comes out of you and then we’ll see how we get it out.”
The last tour of Sant Climent de Llobregat sold 250,000 tickets. Aitana wears Bimba & Lola swimsuit, Dior necklace, earrings, Serpenti Viper bracelet and Bulgari pavé diamonds and Love ring by Cartier.Javier Biosca
A lot has changed since then. Aitana is now in the chapel awaiting the release of her third album, Alpha, which will be out in the fall. She had prepared other pop songs she had done so far. But in January he went to Los Angeles to record this one. A record that is advertised as electronic. “It’s more of a club, but not a reggaeton club, because I love reggaeton, but there are a lot of very good people who are already doing it. What will I contribute there? I don’t have that reggaeton art. I wanted to do club songs.”
It is, he assures, a concept album. “A commitment to fun, having a good time at a party and being out there with your friends at your leisure. That’s conceptual.” Your company is preparing for a very ambitious start. It’s one of their goals for the coming months and it shows in the way they explain it. There will be a tour and a series of parties around the world, they call it Alpha House, where DJs will be performing and where Aitana won’t necessarily be present. The CD has seven keys, but as you can see there are two aspects: a darker one, although not very big, represented by Los Angeles, the first song, and another one that is pure Eurodance, the most commercial aspect of the electronic music from the 1990s that we’ve heard Las Babys from, almost a version of the famous 1993 Saturday Night friends came . They were doing Saturday Night and a non-Spanish friend, when we lined up for the dance I didn’t know what to do.” Where was this friend from? He smiles before replying, “Well, it was Sebastian. When everyone started dancing to “Saturday Night,” he freaked out a little. And then I said: I want to make a song out of it.”
Musically, he describes himself as a person who likes everything. “I enjoy everything. I come from a very verbena family,” says Aitana, who wears a satin mini dress, veil, gloves, stockings and sandals, all by Versace.Javier Biosca
She seems as eager to begin the whole process as she is worried about what’s to come. “It’s going to get crazy in the fall,” he admits. He’s coping with the therapy. I try to go there at least once a month. You’re experiencing what’s happening to you and you’re trying to get a handle on things around you.” It’s the way he’s also dealt with his fear of flying. “I had a bad experience. I missed the oxygen masks when I was 12 on a return trip from Egypt. But I don’t feel like staying home because of my fears, you know? When I say enjoyment, I mean travel, going out, getting to know things, the world, people.” How do you see yourself in 10 years? “For example, I really like what Rihanna has done. He released a record eight or nine times in a row every year and it was a smash hit. And then he went five or six years without releasing music. In a more business plan. I don’t see myself without making music now, I don’t think about it, I can’t imagine it. But I also think it’s cool that if I feel like it, I can stop for a bit, I think you have to know how to stop. I would like to have this ability in the future. Now I don’t need it, but if I feel like doing something else in the future, don’t be afraid. And then if I want to go back, go back and see what happens. I don’t know, I think it’s important too.
The singer, who is the muse of the ‘El País Semanal’ summer special, wears a top and shorts by Ludovic de Saint Sernin, earrings, earrings and boots by Givenchy, a B.zero1 ring by Bulgari and a clash ring by Cartier.Javier Biosca
credits:
Photography: Javier Biosca.
Make-up: Fer Martinez (Esther Almansa).
Hairdresser: Jesús de Paula (COOL) for Shu Uemura Art of Hair & Ghd.
Set Designer: Laura Liz.
Production: Maia Hoetnik.
Photo assistants: Enrique Escandell and Nano Hernández.
Styling assistant: Belén Claver.
Acknowledgments: Quinta da Botica.
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