As if in a tracking shot, you can see it arriving from afar and slowly crossing the Plaza de Santa Ana in Madrid. Tall and slender, her height and slenderness are highlighted by a bow on the top of her head and the undulating gait imposed by very high heels studded with rhinestones stands out like a rare bird among the combat uniforms of the tourists posing for the aperitif time is of the essence. However, what strikes Yurena the most up close, apart from the indescribable fox jacket that she wears under her cloth coat, is her snow-white and very smooth complexion, which is even whiter because it contrasts with the red of the burst lips, the red of that Hair and the black of the false eyelashes and the parting that accentuates his eyes. It doesn't go unnoticed, come on. She greets us extremely politely and indulges in the conversation with a very detailed speech that even hypnotizes the cat, the mascot of the club where we met, and walks calmly between her legs. She was delighted. She lives alone at home with two kittens.
What should I prefer to call you: María del Mar, Tamara, Ámbar, Yurena?
Jurena, of course. Tamara and ámbar were names I gave up because they were suing me because I had already been caught and even though I won, I chose not to fight that fight. But Yurena is my official stage name, registered with the Patent and Trademark Office and published in the BOE since 2005, so Yurena forever.
Does no one call her Marimar, not even her friends?
No, not even my mother, who always called me “baby.” At school I did, but most often they called me “fat, whale or four eyes”. I have suffered from bullying since I was a child. They destroyed my self-esteem. I was ashamed to tell my mother and spent years locked in my room listening to music: Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Bowie, Duran Duran. There I discovered that I wanted to dedicate myself to this issue, I talked to my mother and started fighting like a lioness and never stopped throughout my life.
She is an only daughter. Did your parents spoil you a lot?
My parents gave their lives for their daughter. He was a first class bricklayer at Altos Hornos de Bilbao. My mother worked in a printing company until she got married. When I came to Madrid, my father stayed and my mother came with me. We never broke up. I was everything to her and she was everything to me. I arrived in Madrid without any disturbances and was faced with a world full of beasts.
I imagine it refers to, say, his controversial period of fighting with other characters. peculiar in television programs. But you yourself admitted that you invented courtship and pregnancy.
And I will regret this lie for the rest of my life because it contradicts my values, my principles and my way of being. It was he who convinced me by telling me that this would help me become more known as an artist and I allowed it because I believed in this person. [Paco Porras]I trusted him and he betrayed me. If there's one thing I can boast about, it's that I have the memory of an elephant. That's why I neither forget nor forgive. My mother said that forgiveness without forgetting is not forgiveness at all. There are unforgivable and unforgivable things.
Like which?
What the morons and ticks that came out in the media in collaboration with people from that media did to me, saying really cruel things about myself.
You watched this game. What makes you different from them?
They told me everything and I never lost my temper. I got angry, I defended myself, but I have my professional and personal ethics. And I had a job, not like others who didn't have a job or benefits and made a living by talking badly about me. I've never been a fool. Maybe she was naive in the sense that she believed in people. But I was never stupid, ridiculous or stupid because I had been sold for so long. It wasn't me, I'm not, and I won't be.
And what did you feel when you heard it?
I tried to commit suicide twice. I took a lot of pills. I didn't want to die, I wanted to stop suffering, I needed rest. He fought with all his might, but he could do nothing to counter this lynching campaign. See if I suffered because I didn't even think about the harm I would cause to my mother, who was and is the person I loved most in the world. And she was the one who saved me. The second time, for minutes. She always saved my life until she left.
And now that she no longer has that burning nail, what saves her?
My mental strength. It seems contradictory, but since my mother died on October 21, 2019, four years and four months ago yesterday, I live for her memory. They ripped my soul out when he died. I still haven't learned to live without her.
There are people who think you're a broken toy.
Maybe they say it to expand on that idea. A Broken Toy doesn't have shows almost every weekend and is sold out. He also doesn't release albums on digital platforms and in a few hours they go to number 1 without any advertising. I've lived on it my whole life. There are always people willing to cause harm. Envy is not a good travel companion.
How did you manage to overcome depression?
I have never dropped my rings. At the worst time I opened a bar in Madrid and left the song. I got away from everything. Until one day I got up, left the night and dedicated a few years of introspection to healing myself. I told myself, I'm not a businesswoman, I'm a singer, this is my life, and I came back in 2012. This is Yurena. I took the bull by the horns. Since then I have been flying alone. Yes, I have my rep, video directors, image consultants, I have my team, but I'm the one in charge.
How did you feel when you received the call from? The Javis produce a series about you?
I didn't believe it, but I knew from the beginning that it was a gift from my mother, may she rest in peace so that justice can be done for me. Call it cosmic justice, but that's exactly what it is.
Do you think your life deserves to be told?
I strongly believe that if an artist's life and career deserves to be told, then mine does. I was an unparalleled musical and social phenomenon. I launched an unprecedented revolution, a movement called Tamarism that made history. And I was the artist and the person who, like no other, suffered moral and professional harassment in everything that surrounded me. Without forgetting my incessant fight against all odds, completely alone. My life could last more than one season of the series. Nobody can imagine what I had to go through. I wouldn't wish it, not even on my worst enemy.
María del Mar Cuena Seisdedos, Yurena (formerly Tamara and Ambar) photographed at the Argo Club in Madrid.Bernardo Pérez
How long does it take to apply makeup?
Two hours today. If I'm just going shopping or having a coffee with friends, maybe a little less, but I always wear makeup and high heels, even when I'm throwing out the trash.
How does it feel to get older?
Apart from breast and lip enlargement, nothing else was done to me. The skin is mine. Based on top-notch care since I was 12 and my mother's genetics. If I look bad, I have no problem using acid or Botox.
She said she was raped in her first sexual relationship as a teenager. Have you been sexually abused or assaulted again?
No, the truth. I had many proposals to work as an escort (luxury prostitute) and many through social networks to sleep with me and pay me a lot of money, but I always said no. I'm not narrow-minded, but that's what I always decide.
Do you have a partner now?
Not now. I've had several, but I've always had a very bad eye for men. I noticed the beautiful ones and the tall ones, the good-looking ones, but then they didn't talk, they were empty and I got bored because I like to talk about everything. Now I have lowered that bar. To be with someone I have to like them, but I need brutal chemistry between the two of us to move on. I am single because I am very demanding.
Why do you think he hasn't hit another ball like the song in all that time? “I did not change myself”?
Let's see, Luz, I toured China, the theaters were packed, and they called me back. I have performed at Ifema, the Wizink Center and in auditoriums. Since I've been producing myself and without advertising, every single has been number one on social networks. I have always, always lived from my work. I'm very proud of myself. Very much.
“I Haven’t Changed” is still sung loudly at weddings and karaoke, but I think you hate it.
Yes, after my suicide attempts I hated it for a long time because it reminded me of the lynching I suffered, but people asked me about it so much that I adapted it to my new style, more dancing, and now I sing it. I don't love it, but it no longer belongs just to me, but to the people.
So in the end it changed.
I have changed: I have taken the bull by the horns, no one bullies me anymore.
Thank you, Tamara [me equivoco de nombre, involuntariamente].
Yurena, Yurena, let's banish the past. Yurena forever.
“SUPEREST”
So “e”, like the album that Tamara released in 2001, will be the title of the series that is being recorded these days about the life of María del Mar Cuena Seisdedos, written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo and produced by Los Javis , later known artistically as Tamara, Ámbar and Yurena. Cuena (Santurzi, Bilbao, 54 years old) rose to fame in 2000 with the song “No Change” and her presence in television shows such as “Crónicas Marcianas”, surrounded by a court of unmentionable characters – Paco Pobras, Leonardo Dantes, Der Harlequin-. Her mother, Margarita Seisdedos, served as her daughter's loyal squire in front of and behind the camera. After being absent from mainstream media for several years, she returned to television as a contestant on “reality” shows such as “Survivors” and “Big Brother Duo.” Now, after the death of her mother in 2019, she returns to the present as the series' muse via her character, played by actress Ingrid García-Jonsson. “If an artist’s life deserves to be told, then it’s mine,” she says modestly. We will see.
You can follow EL PAÍS Television on X or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Get the TV report
All the latest news from broadcasters and platforms, with interviews, news and analyses, as well as recommendations and reviews from our journalists
LOG IN
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_