• Adriana Abenia: "Now, if you're good, you have to ask for forgiveness"
  • Adriana Abenia and the Sacred Right to Be Fat

"I suffered from speech aphasia. Brain MRI doesn't go well. My world turned upside down. I'm admitted to the seventh floor and decide to take the secret with me. Because who's going to want to hire someone as vulnerable as me?"

Of that stroke that he never called by name, not even now, 13 years and 25 days ago today. Barely six months later, Adriana Abenia, the spine-to-the-dot reporter of the incipient Sálvame who dared to question the then Princess Letizia on a one-to-one basis, disappeared from Telecinco without saying goodbye.

What happened in that period of time, also what triggered the hospital admission that changed her life, was kept by the blonde from Zaragoza under seven keys and a lie, so that she would not lose her great opportunity on television. Becoming a mother, at the age of 40 and with a life much further away from the spotlight but much healthier and happier, Abenia pours all that into a memoir with a paradoxical name, La vida ahora (Vergara edition), and a redemptive background, not a revanchist one: "I don't thirst for revenge. I've forgotten, I've forgiven and I'm more than over it, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to write a word."

You reveal that she suffered a mass sexual assault at a public event she attended as a reporter and that no one did anything to help her. It happened on the eve of his stroke, but he never made either thing public. Would you act differently now? It would be completely different, I would have denounced it immediately. I hid it to try to turn the page, I didn't want to throw away everything I had achieved. I felt super vulnerable, I was very blocked and I have continued to do so for many years. He has had to prescribe pain for me to be able to put myself in front of this book. Soon after, he left Sálvame. She said that she had been a volunteer, that she was tired of her character, she even told Paolo Vasile in a private meeting, but now she reveals that she was fired in bad ways. Do you regret not telling the truth? Being honest would probably have opened up a range of possibilities, even to ask for help, and the lie punished me at work. Vasile, who was betting on me to present Survivors, was deeply hurt to hear that I was leaving. I haven't been able to figure out, even after finishing the book, whether a lie is more convenient than a truth sometimes. But I wanted to protect La Fábrica de la Tele, mind you, so that nothing would happen to them.

I have no thirst for revenge. I've forgotten, I've forgiven and I'm more than over it

Is TV an unhealthy environment for mental health? What is insane is to live at a thousand revolutions and be held hostage by a job without prioritizing what is really important. When you like the job so much, it can be very dangerous because along the way you forget everything else. I forgot to take care of myself, I forgot to set limits, I didn't listen to anyone. And it took its toll on me, of course. But television has the added bonus of constant overexposure... It's a special job, yes, because if you screw up, you screw up for everybody. There are times when the phone doesn't stop ringing and it seems like you're the best and other times you think it's broken. The balance has been given to me by my husband and my daughter, I needed something very real to continue on this roller coaster. I took a lot of penalties for being so ambitious in the past, I just focused on what I was doing wrong. That's why I dedicate this book to my daughter, so she knows that perfection is boring, unreal, and impossible to achieve.

Adriana Abenia poses with her book 'Life Now'. JAVIER BARBANCHO

My physique has opened doors for me, but it has also hurt me: many times I have had to prove more

She has run away from her characteristic blonde hair several times, but she always comes back. Do you feel that your beauty may have harmed you? I recognize that my image has opened many doors for me, but it has also forced me to prove more than other people. Society has a lot of prejudices and I admit that at the beginning I was moving after a character who quite fulfilled the cliché. Sálvame was a little scary for me because it was very new, very controversial, it was on everyone's lips and I was a newcomer, it was hard for me to think that I had any role there. I felt very unprotected, so I took refuge behind this smiling character, who remained so despite what happened to me. People believed it and I believed it at times, too, until I decided to let go of it because I no longer knew where the line between the character and the person was. I forgot who I was.

Adriana Abenia approached her autobiography as if she were undertaking a diary, as if no one else was going to read it. At least, at times. But fate had a curious coincidence in store for him: as he lined up the last words of his manuscript, the protagonists of Sálvame said goodbye to the audience forever. He didn't see it, he didn't tune back into the show after he left. Nor did she participate in that finale to which she was invited "as a matter of principle".

Perhaps also as a result of fate, the next appointment that the presenter has marked on the agenda after this interview is on Telecinco.

Would he go back if asked? To present Survivors, for example... Yes, I would go back but setting limits. With enthusiasm, with a lot of love and with a lot of passion, but never losing sight of the fact that there are times when I have to slow down. My relationship with Mediaset is excellent in spite of everything, and I owe it all to them. The doors are more than open. How does someone who participated in the peak of the old Telecinco see the new Telecinco? They have been installed in that model for a long time, I would bet on something more familiar. Even if it's hard for them, they should turn their way of doing television around and I'd love to be part of that restructuring, of course [laughs]. It will take a while, maybe even a couple of years, but I am convinced that Telecinco will return to being the strong network it was at the beginning of my career.

  • Mediaset