Where there was fire there are embers. In the case of Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Luis Miguel Rodríguez, a leading businessman in the scrap metal trade, those embers of his former passion are still there, transformed into a solid friendship. In an interview that Bertín Osborne did with Franco’s eldest granddaughter, she confessed with open sincerity that the great love of her life had been Luismi, with whom Carmen shared love and life together for three years. The businessman’s infidelities caused the breakup but not the friendship. After the separation, announced by Carmen on a magazine cover Holaposing in the Meirás manor, the Chatarrero and Carmen Franco’s first-born daughter shared a table and tablecloth in a restaurant in Madrid.
A little-known episode, the financial debt that Luismi contracted with Carmen for a loan from her, returned too late, did not keep them away for too long either. According to what Luis Miguel himself confessed to The world, everything was settled perfectly in due time. Carmen’s successor in the businessman’s life was Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, a friend of the former Duchess of Franco and who introduced her to Luismi when they were still together.
This weekend, Carmen attended the wedding of her nephew Daniel, son of her brother Cristóbal and the model Jose Toledo, in Madrid. But on Sunday she surprised her by appearing in the Plaza de Las Ventas with Luis Miguel, both of them are very fond of bullfighting. “She called me, we went to eat and then to the bullfight,” Luismi tells Informalia. “Then I left her and her friend who was with her. I always get along very well with my exes,” she points out.
These days, in Madrid, Carmen has felt overwhelmed by the press, she has asked them to leave her alone and has not wanted to make any statements. She has told reporters that her harassment is what made him settle in Portugal, where she has taken up residence on the coast of Cascais. Until now, she lived accompanied by Tim MacKeague, an Australian 35 years younger than her (Carmen is 72), whom everyone considered her new romantic relationship. However, her friends assure that he is just a good friend, a coach who has taken care of her with her advice, company and affection. Tim would be a kind of physical and spiritual physiotherapist.
It seems that Tim is no longer always in Portugal with Carmen. She has spent part of this summer in India, he travels to Australia from time to time and she comes to Spain more often than before, especially to her estate in Cazalla de la Sierra, near Seville, where she follows very closely. the products grown there and animal husbandry.
Carmen has encouraged some Spanish friends to buy the house next to hers in Cascais, where she would like to have someone nearby, because they tell us that sometimes she feels a bit lonely and is homesick for Spain, for the gastronomy, for the entertainment and the life of our country, but she says that it stops her that the press does not leave her alone. It is also true that Portugal has had a very favorable tax regime for foreigners who buy a house in the country. Carmen inherited a large fortune from her mother and she is detached from the businesses of her brothers, who would have bought her share of her family inheritance.
