Tonight, Friday! has broadcast the second part of the interview with Ángel Cristo about his childhood and relationship with his mother, Bárbara Rey. From how he took the most compromising photographs of the artist, to how he witnessed her mother’s three attempts to blackmail the emeritus king.
According to Cristo, the first attempt was made with the photographs and recordings that he had taken, but that she (Bárbara Rey) revealed “out of fear.” “She thought it was better to reveal them herself, but I ended up revealing them in their entirety.”
After the photographs, “the next move was for my godmother, with the man who was initially going to take the photos, to call the royal house to ask for money in exchange for the material.” But in the Royal House they did not take it seriously, according to Ángel Cristo. “The man that the two of them chose for this type of shenanigans is a man without training, if not culture. He called and said that he wanted 3 billion pesetas threatening.
Since that “didn’t work,” they decided that this man “pretended to call my mother, threatening to commit material between her and the king to destroy the monarchy, Spain and the entire world.” What did catch the attention of the secret service, which went to Bárbara Rey’s house to tap the phone.
After intervening, the Royal House realized that Rey was the one who had devised the blackmail. It was then that they were “willing to talk to her to see what could be done.” And then Bárbara Rey “goes back to work again with a program for her. And, from there, our life begins to change and there is money at home.”
After the first blackmail, came a second attempt. When the program they gave Bárbara Rey with the first blackmail ended, “the money runs out and we can’t maintain the same lifestyle.” Through a father from the school he ends up helping Rey negotiate with the Royal House.
However, “he wanted to conspire against her to take money and harm her by trying to get her to take the checks for the distribution of weapons.” This man and from the Royal House were having conversations to “get that woman off of him in any way.”
Although the second attempt was not completed, there was a third attempt in which Bárbara Rey contacted a journalist friend of hers. “Santi had the necessary tools to negotiate, the knowledge and the toughness to reach a successful agreement.”
In this negotiation, “a contract and a program on channel 9 are agreed upon in exchange for (Bárbara Rey) not speaking about the matter again, destroying the material and each person moving on with their lives.” After that, “she spent 5 years with the cooking program receiving monthly money as a salary. They reduced the amount over the years until the time came when my mother was taken away from the program and went from earning around 50 to 70 billion a month to earning 0.”
