Four years since the death of Aless Lequio and the media renaissance of Ana Obregón: from pain to controversies

May 13, 2020 was the most painful day for Ana Obregon y Alessandro Lequio. Two parents lost her son, the actress’s only child, to Ewing’s sarcoma at the young age of 27. In these four years, the life of the presenter and biologist has taken a turn, especially since she came into the world in March of last year. Ana Lequio Obregónborn by surrogate and according to the biologist thanks to the preserved semen of her deceased son.

“My life went out”, were the words that Obregón wrote first thing in the morning the next day after returning from Barcelona, ​​where Aless lost his life after weeks in hospital. From that moment on, the protagonist of Ana and the 7 She found a window on the networks to share her pain and find the support of a Spain that devoted itself to her. Of the 100,000 followers that she had at that time on Instagram, she went on to have more than a million in a matter of a few months.

Six months after the worst thing that can happen to a mother, the actress and presenter granted her first (of many) exclusives to Hola, the same magazine that, by the way, featured her crying in front of her son’s grave. Heartbreaking headlines with which a country once again empathized, although criticism also began to surface from those who considered that he was taking economic and media benefit from her pain (which is indisputable).

At the end of 2020, half a year after the tragedy, Obregón received the task of giving the Chimes for TVE. Something that he had not done since 2004, when, in the midst of the success of Ana and the 7 She gave them for the last time with her beloved Ramón García from Puerta del Sol. Until the year her son died, the public entity was not interested in her again to say goodbye to the year, something that Risto Mejide harshly criticized at the time. That year was not only difficult for her, since the Covid pandemic made us all more sensitive and empathize even more with the actress’s loss. Like when Isabel Pantoja gave her first concert after Paquirri’s death or when Rocío Jurado said goodbye to her audience with a historic gala in which cancer was already affecting her health.

The media interest in her was exponentially greater than in recent years, when her presence on the small screen was reduced to the occasional interview or participation in a program, like that one. Masterchef Celebrityand in 2019 in which it only lasted one program. In 2016 she also had her own reality show on DKISS, an adventure with which she DJed at audiences.

In its media rebirth from 2020 onwards, the exclusives did not stop giving and again other Chimes in 2022 (the 2021 ones could not be given due to Covid-19). Antena 3 also recovered her after years without counting on her to have her as a member of the jury of Mask Singer. These are just some examples. In February 2023, after creating his son’s foundation with Lequio, he announced that he was preparing a book about Aless’s illness. Some pages that hid his great secret: bringing Ana Sandra into the world.

The book was not published until April 2023, just a month after the girl was born via surrogate. Obregón carried out the process of gestation of the little girl in secret but her wishes to have the little girl were already written in the book, according to her to fulfill the last will of her son. She gave Alessandro Lequio as a witness to that will, although this has never been confirmed by the Italian count, who unlike the actress does not want to talk about her son on television or participate in the controversies generated by the actress.

A historic cover

Obregón reopened a great debate in Spain when the magazine Hola He featured it on its cover leaving Memorial Regional Hospital with the little girl in his arms. Mother of a girl, she then read the publication. The following week Obregón’s interview came out in which she announced that her daughter was, according to her, the daughter of her son. And during all this time, criticism for resorting to surrogacy, using another woman’s body in exchange for financial compensation, has not stopped. The debate even reached the Congress of Deputies, since surrogacy is illegal in Spain and there are those who consider that there is a legal vacuum when fathers and mothers are allowed to register their children born by surrogate in another country.

The birth of Ana Sandra was the trigger. She divided public opinion: from the broken mother of Spain it became one of the famous homelands most hated and loved in equal measure. Not only has she been questioned for resorting to this technique, but also by those who consider that it is truly absurd that she would take care of a newborn when she is around 70 years old. Furthermore, the fact that she exposes it day in and day out on her social networks and that she sells it in her main magazine also generates a great debate. It must also be remembered that her son was reserved with her private life.

Added to the debate generated by the actress on all these aspects was the information published by this portal about the donations she promised to the Aless Lequio foundation. She herself entered a loop of contradictions giving several versions: that the publisher’s accounts had not yet been settled so she could not yet donate what she promised, that she now had a mouth to feed and that’s why the exclusives she kept it… Obregón, after the media pressure received in recent months and after his values ​​were called into question, ended up saying in his very well-paid interview in Friday that “more than 100,000 euros of copyright have been received to research cancer in children and young people.” Informalia He also published that the artist, who boasts of having covered all the expenses of her son’s illness, collected from the health insurance the money she spent on her son’s treatment: “Even the trips.”