The son of Cecilia Bolocco and Carlos Menem, Máximo Menem Bolocco, spoke about how he experienced the visit of his father and sister Zulema after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Maximo Menem Bolocco He made his first solo cover as an 18-year-old adult, where he talked about how he coped with the cancer he was diagnosed with almost four years ago, the relationship with his parents and how he was upset when he saw his half-sister Zulema cry when he came to Chile.
The young student who has spent his entire life facing the cameras and the lights with his mother, does not hide the love and admiration he feels for her, Cecilia Bolocco Fonk, the first Miss Universe in the country, and he made it clear in his conversation with Velvet magazine.
Even during the interview several times he commented on the unconditional support that she gave him since they learned of his illness. In 2018 he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“My mom died and was born again. We became closer than ever and, according to me, now we understand each other much better than before”, he confessed.
Máximo says he does not remember much how it all happened. “I felt bad and my mom sent me to the clinic (…) I never thought I was going to die. Never, never, never, never. I always knew I was going to be fine (…) In addition, my mother was too calm or that’s how she made me feel, “he said.
A complex treatment
To treat the tumor, he and his mother moved to the United States, but it was not easy, especially since the first doctor who treated him was soft on his complications.
Everything changed in Memphis. “Everything was different, the place, the attention. We rented a house and my mom made panoramas for me all day. He made that year beautiful.”
Why do you think you got sick?: “I asked the doctor the same thing. He replied that he would get a Nobel if he knew. I think I had a very bad time in 2018 and this was the end of that bad experience”, referring to the poor relationship with his father, Carlos Menem.
“Seeing her cry on television, that dazzled me”
Product of the same disease, his father, the former president of Argentina, Carlos Saúl Menem, visited him in Chile. A trip that captured the attention of the Chilean and Argentine media.
“I remember waking up and seeing him sitting there. I remember the image, but I didn’t dimension anything else. Of course, I felt angry knowing that Zulemita (Menem, her half-sister) had come, when she had always made my life impossible. Seeing her cry on television, that confused me, ”confessed Máximo.
The young man assured that his relationship with his father was complex in every way, but especially for his 33-year-older sister. “It was very difficult to contact him (his father). It was long, at the end we called one of its custodians, but it was difficult”, he recalls.
Menem Bolocco also recalled the time he traveled to Argentina and “I was with only people I didn’t know. I could never be alone with him. He didn’t talk much either, he was old. I don’t have many memories of him, because I didn’t know him very well either. It is that I also had to go through the Zulemita, to get to talk to him “.
Regarding whether he needed a father figure, he acknowledged that “obviously when I was a boy I saw my cousins play with their parents and I wondered why I didn’t have mine, but then one grows up. I think that my greatest father references are Pepo (Daire, Cecilia’s partner) and Gonzalo Cisternas, the father of Diana’s 2 eldest children. But I don’t know much about my dad.
The last meeting with his father
Despite everything and without rancor, the youngest of Carlos Saúl Menem’s sons recounted how the last meeting with his father was. “It was the only time I was able to be alone with him. I remember holding his hand and talking to him for an hour nonstop. And I know that he was listening to me, because in certain parts the monitor was altered”.
“I didn’t know him long, but they say I inherited how charming they say I am. I would like to find out what my dad was like and why he was as charming as they say he was, “said the young man.