You can see her coming from afar, as if in a travellingslowly crossing the Plaza de Santa Ana in Madrid. Tall and slender, with her height and slenderness highlighted by a bow on her crown and the undulating gait imposed by very high stiletto heels studded with rhinestones, she stands out like a rare bird among the battle uniforms of the tourists who crowd the square. at aperitif time. Up close, however, what draws Yurena’s attention the most, in addition to the ineffable fox jacket she wears under her cloth coat, is her snowy, smooth complexion, even whiter in contrast to the red of her burst lips. , the red hair, and the black of the false eyelashes and the parting that underlines his eyes. It doesn’t go unnoticed, come on. She greets, extremely polite, and indulges in the conversation with a very detailed speech that hypnotizes even the cat, the mascot of the club where we have met, who calmly walks between her legs. She delighted. She lives alone with two kittens at home.
What do you prefer me to call you: María del Mar, Tamara, Ámbar, Yurena?
Yurena, of course. Tamara and Ámbar were names that I gave up because they sued me for already being caught, and, although I won, I preferred not to fight that battle. But Yurena is my official stage name, registered in the Patent and Trademark Office since 2005 and published in the BOE, that is, Yurena forever.
Doesn’t anyone call her Marimar, not even her friends?
No, not even my mother, who always called me “baby.” At school, yes, but what they called me most was “fat, whale, or four eyes.” I suffered bullyng since I was a child. They destroyed my self-esteem. I was ashamed to tell my mother and I 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, I talked to my mother and I started fighting like a lioness and I haven’t stopped doing it all my life.
She’s an only child. Did her parents spoil her 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 shop until she got married. When she came to Madrid, my father stayed and my mother came with me. We never separated. I was everything to her, and she was everything to me. I arrived in Madrid without malfunctioning and I faced a world of beasts.
I imagine that it refers to his controversial time of fights with other characters, let’s say. peculiar on television shows. But you yourself have admitted that you invented a courtship and pregnancy.
And I will regret that lie for the rest of my life, because it goes against my values, my principles and my way of being. It was he who convinced me by telling me that this would help me to be known more as an artist, and I let myself 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 having the memory of an elephant. That’s why I neither forget nor forgive. My mother said that forgiveness without forgetting was not forgiveness at all. There are unforgettable and unforgivable things.
As which?
What has been done to me by suckers and ticks who were encouraged in the media, with the collaboration of people from those media, to say truly atrocious things about me.
You played that game. What distinguishes it from them?
They have told me everything and I have never lost my temper. I have been angry, I have defended myself, but I have my professional and personal ethics. And I have had a job, not like others who had no job or benefit, and lived by speaking badly of me. I’ve never been a fool. Maybe she was naive, in the sense that she believed in people. But I have never been stupid, ridiculous or stupid, as I have been sold for so long. I have not been, nor am I, nor will I 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 to rest. She fought tooth and nail, but she couldn’t fight this lynching campaign. See if I suffered that I didn’t even think about the damage I was going to do to my mother, that she was her and she is the person I have loved most in the world. And it was she who saved me. The second time, for minutes. She has always saved my life, until she left.
And now that she doesn’t have 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 she died. I still haven’t learned to live without it.
There are those who think that you are a broken toy.
Maybe they say it to extend that idea. A Broken Toy Doesn’t have shows almost every weekend and sell them out. Nor does he publish albums on digital platforms and in a few hours they rise to number 1 without promotion. I’ve been living off this all my life. There are always people willing to try to harm you. Envy is not a good traveling companion.
How did you manage to overcome depression?
I have never dropped my rings. In the worst period, I opened a pub in Madrid and left the song. I got away from everything. Until one day I stood up, left the night and dedicated myself to a few years of introspection to heal myself. I told myself, I’m not a businesswoman, I’m a singer, that’s my life, and I came back in 2012. Here is Yurena. I took the bull by the horns. Since then, I fly alone. Yes, I have my reprevideo directors, image consultants, I have my team, but I am the one in charge.
How did you feel when you received the call from The Javis to produce a series about you?
I didn’t believe it, but I knew from the beginning that it was a gift that my mother sent me, may she rest in peace, so that justice can be done to me. Call it cosmic justice, but it is what it is.
Do you think your life deserves to be told?
I humbly believe that, if the life and career of any artist deserves to be told, it is mine. I have been an unprecedented musical and social phenomenon. I caused a revolution never seen before, a movement called Tamarism that has made history. And I have been the artist and person who has suffered moral and professional harassment like no one else with everything that surrounded me. Without forgetting my incessant fight against all odds, totally alone. My life could last for more than one season of the series. Nobody imagines everything I have had to go through. I do not wish it nor to my worst enemy.
How long does it take to put on makeup?
Today, two hours. If I’m just going to the shops or to have coffee with friends, maybe a little less, but I always wear makeup and heels, even to throw out the trash.
How does it feel to get older?
I have not had anything done other than, in its day, a breast and lip augmentation. The skin is mine. Based on high-end care since I was 12 years old and my mother’s genetics. When I look bad, I won’t have any problem getting acid or botox.
She has said that, in her first sexual relationship, as a teenager, she was raped. Has she suffered sexual abuse or assault again?
No the truth. What I have had have been many proposals to be escort (luxury prostitute), and many, through social networks, to sleep with me paying me a lot of money, but I always said no. I’m not narrow-minded, but I always decide that.
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 handsome ones and the tall ones, the hellobut then they had no conversation, they were empty and I got bored, because I like to talk about everything. Now, I’ve lowered that bar. To be with someone I have to like them, but I need there to be brutal chemistry between the two of us to be able to continue. I’m single because I’m very demanding.
Why do you think that, in all this time, he has not hit another ball like with the song ‘Do not change’?
Let’s see, Luz, I toured China, filling theaters to capacity, and they called me back. I have performed at Ifema, at the Wizink Center, in auditoriums. Since I produce myself, without promotion, every single It has been number one in networks. I have always, always, lived from my work. I’m very proud of myself. Very much.
‘I didn’t change’ is still played and sung loudly at weddings and karaoke, but I think you hate it.
Yes, after my suicide attempts, for a long time I hated it because it reminded me of the lynching I suffered, but people asked me for it so much that I adapted it to my new style, more danceand now I sing it. I don’t love her, but she is no longer just mine, but people’s.
So, in the end, it did change.
I did change: I took the bull by the horns, no one bulls me anymore.
Thank you very much, Tamara [me equivoco de nombre, involuntariamente].
Yurena, Yurena, let’s banish the past. Yurina forever.
‘it’s over’
Thus, with “e”, like the album that Tamara released in 2001, the title will be the series that, written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo and produced by Los Javis, is being recorded these days about the life of María del Mar Cuena Seisdedos, later known artistically like Tamara, Ámbar and Yurena. Cuena (Santurzi, Bilbao, 54 years old), rose to fame in 2000, with the song ‘No change’, and her presence on television programs such as ‘Crónicas Marcianas’, surrounded by a court of unspeakable characters -Paco Pobras, Leonardo Dantes, The Harlequin-. Her mother, Margarita Seisdedos, served as her daughter’s faithful squire in front of and behind the cameras. After a few years missing from the mass media, she returned to television as a contestant on ‘realities’ such as ‘Survivors’ and ‘Big Brother Duo’. Now, after the death of her mother in 2019, she returns to the present as the muse of the series about her figure, played by actress Ingrid García-Jonsson. “If an artist’s life deserves to be told, that is mine,” she says, “humbly.” We will see.
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