In June 1985, at the height of his success in America, Julio Iglesias gave a prophetic answer to EL PAÍS journalist Juan Cueto. Asked what he had chosen at that critical moment in his life, the singer replied: “Between a psychiatrist and the Bahamas, I chose the Bahamas!”.

At that time, a house on the island of New Providence seemed like the movement of a romantic hermit seeking peace after a surgical intervention. Today, four decades later, that choice looks like the beginning of building an impenetrable fortress where law and morality have begun to lose their way.

Julio Iglesias, now 82, has spent the second half of his life hidden in what he calls his “Bermuda Triangle”: a series of luxury residences between the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Indian Creek Island in Miami.

The veil of mystery that surrounded this seclusion of self-imposed has just been torn apart, as this week two former housekeepers filed a shocking lawsuit in Spain’s National Court, accusing the artist of sexual assault, sexual harassment and human trafficking.

According to the lawsuit, the events allegedly took place in 2021 at his Caribbean villas, where a frightening atmosphere of control and humiliation prevailed. Sociologist Hans Laguna and journalist Maruja Torres, who followed the singer for a month in the 1980s, describe his private life as a closed and strictly controlled structure.

Torres testifies that Iglesias tended to humiliate staff and treat women like “hunted beasts”. His isolation was not simply a desire for peace, but a means to exercise absolute power over those around him, away from the eyes of the world and the media that for years have pampered his image.

Despite the fact that Iglesias has denied the accusations through social networks, the testimonies of “protected witnesses” are bringing to light a dark side that even tax havens can no longer hide. From stories of “virtual” long-distance marriages to accusations of forced STD tests on staff, the myth of the Spaniard who charmed the world is being replaced by the image of a lonely and abusive man.

For Julio Iglesias, who once declared that he “lives wonderfully in solitude”, the paradise he chose in 1985 is turning into a legal hell. His credibility is drowning in the same sea where he built his impregnable castles.

Source: prizrenpost