It’s over was the song with which María Jiménez achieved fame in 1978. And yesterday the singer’s life ended at 73 years old. It was her son Alejandro who issued a statement to break the news: “With deep sadness and pain in our hearts, today we say goodbye to María Jiménez, a woman loved and respected for her unwavering commitment to her family, friends and admirers. her. She was an indomitable spirit, an overwhelming personality, a strong and brave woman who fought against all adversity beyond imagination.”
María Jiménez has died from colon cancer that she was diagnosed with 3 years ago. She has spent the summer with no health problems. On August 16, he published his last photo in a restaurant in Conil de la Frontera with his son Alejandro and his two grandchildren, which is why “we didn’t expect this to happen so quickly,” his son said yesterday to the media: “ Four days ago he started to feel weaker and very stubborn, he didn’t want to go to the doctor.”
Three days ago, finally, the singer traveled from Chiclana de la Frontera, where she had recently taken up residence, to Seville, to see her doctor. After a review, they advise her not to return to Chiclana, but rather to stay in Triana, the Sevillian neighborhood where she was born. After two days admitted to the Infanta Luisa hospital in Seville, she died early Thursday morning. “The important thing is that she has not suffered,” said Alejandro Jiménez.
Previously, María Jiménez suffered breast cancer and also throat cancer. Furthermore, 4 years ago she was in a coma for several days, after an intestinal operation.
Yesterday thousands of people passed by the singer’s burning chapel installed in the Seville City Hall. Also famous as Eugenia Martínez de Irujo, Fran Rivera, Carlos Herrera, Los Morancos, India Martínez, Toñi Moreno, Victorio
“A pioneer in raising her voice for freedom, equality and against the mistreatment of women, her Se acabado was encouragement and an example against machismo”, was the correct definition made by Pedro Sánchez, the acting President of the Government yesterday about María Jimenez.
45 years ago, in a Spain that had just emerged from Franco’s regime, the singer with a heartbreaking voice, platinum blonde hair and lifting her skirt to dance revolutionized flamenco and portrayed what gender violence was in It’s over. A song and a title converted into a feminist cry against gender violence that has survived to this day. Soccer player Alexia Putellas led the revolt against Rubiales with
But María Jiménez could not definitively say “it’s over” until 2002, when she put an end to her union with Pepe Sancho, marked by jealousy, infidelities and abuse. They were married three times. The first, by the church in 1980. She was the most famous singer of the moment and he was a very popular actor thanks to the success of the series Curro Jiménez. “It was a crush, but then there were 20 stab wounds,” she said on the program Lazos de sangre. In 1983, their only child together, Alejandro, was born, and the following year they separated.
On January 7, 1985, a tragedy brought them together. María was a single mother at the age of 17 to a girl, Rocío, who Pepe adopted. The same day that the young woman turned 17, she died in a traffic accident. A misfortune that María never overcame, “life goes by, but the pain does not,” she confessed to Jorge Javier Vázquez. In 1987 the couple married again, this time in Costa Rica, but they separated again, and in 1991 they married for the third time. A wedding that the two later described as a farce, held only to sell an exclusive.
In 2002, with the divorce formalized, María Jiménez resurfaced after years of silence. She recounted her marital life in the book Calla Canalla. She dressed in peacock feathers to sing “Who Will Do Your Work Under My Skirt?” (on the album with Sabina, and also “you who deserve a prince, a dentist”, with The Mechanical Goat. But health problems kept her away from the stage, although in 2020 she published an album. In recent years , her grandchildren and the María Jiménez Sevilla Foundation, created against gender violence, were her joys.
This morning the singer’s coffin will leave City Hall and, fulfilling her last wishes, it will tour the Triana neighborhood in a horse-drawn carriage to the San Fernando cemetery, where she will be buried in the family pantheon. Alejandro Jiménez asked everyone who wants to honor her mother to “toast her and listen to her music.”
