Se acabó was the song with which María Jiménez gained fame in 1978. And yesterday the singer’s life ended at the age of 73. It was her son Alejandro who issued a statement to announce the news: “With deep sadness and pain in our hearts, today we say goodbye to María Jiménez, a woman loved and respected for her unbreakable commitment to her family, friends and admirers. An indomitable spirit, an overwhelming personality, a strong and courageous woman who fought against all adversities beyond what is imaginable”.
María Jiménez died of colon cancer diagnosed three years ago. He has passed the summer without health problems. On August 16, he published the last photo in a restaurant in Conil de la Frontera with his son Alejandro and his two grandsons, so “we didn’t expect it to happen so quickly”, said his son yesterday the media: “Four days ago she started to feel weaker and, very stubborn, she didn’t want to go to the doctor”.
Three days ago, finally, the singer went from Chiclana de la Frontera, where she had settled recently, to Seville, to see her doctor. After a review, they advise him not to return to Chiclana, but to stay in Triana, the Sevillian neighborhood where he was born. After being admitted to the Infanta Luisa hospital in Seville for two days, she died on Thursday morning. “The important thing is that he has not suffered”, assured Alejandro Jiménez.
Previously, María Jiménez had suffered from breast cancer and also from neck cancer. In addition, 4 years ago he was in a coma for several days, after an intestinal operation.
Yesterday thousands of people passed by the burning chapel of the singer installed in the Seville Town Hall. Also famous, such 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 mistreatment of women, her Se acabó was an encouragement and an example against masculinity”, was the correct definition made by Pedro Sánchez, the president of the current Government, yesterday about María Jiménez.
45 years ago, in a Spain that had just emerged from the Franco regime, the singer with a mournful voice, platinum blonde hair and lifting her skirt to dance revolutionized flamenco and portrayed what male violence was in Se acabó. A song and a title turned into a feminist cry against gender violence that has reached today. The soccer player Alexia Putellas led the revolt against Rubiales with
But María Jiménez couldn’t definitively say “it’s over” until 2002, when she ended her union with Pepe Sancho, marked by jealousy, infidelities and abuse. They married three times. The first, for the Church, in 1980. She was the most famous singer of the moment and he, a very popular actor thanks to the success of the Curro Jiménez series. “It was a sudden infatuation, but then there were 20 stab wounds,” she said on the program Lazos de sangre. In 1983, the only child together, Alejandro, was born, and the following year they separated.
On January 7, 1985, a tragedy brought them together. María was a 17-year-old single mother of a girl, Rocío, whom Pepe adopted. On the same day that the young woman turned 17, she died in a traffic accident. A misfortune that María never overcame: “Life goes on, but pain doesn’t,” 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 later both described as a farce, held only to sell an exclusive.
In 2002, with the divorce formalized, María Jiménez resurfaced after years of silence. He recounted his married life in the book Calla canalla. He dressed in peacock feathers to sing “¿Quien hará tu trabajo debajo de mi falda” (, on the award-winning album with Sabina, and also “tú que te merece un príncipe, un dentista” with La Cabra Mecánica. But the problems of health took her away from the stage, although she released an album in 2020. In recent years, her grandchildren and the María Jiménez Foundation created against gender violence were her joys.
This morning the singer’s coffin will leave the City Hall and, to fulfill her last wishes, it will travel through the streets of the Triana district in a horse-drawn carriage to the church of the San Fernando Cemetery, where she will be buried in the family cemetery . Yesterday, Alejandro Jiménez asked all those who want to pay tribute to his mother to “raise a toast to her and listen to her music”.
