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PATERNITY

Spaniard files paternity suit against Julio Iglesias

A Spanish man who claims to have the results of a DNA test showing he is Julio Iglesias's son filed a paternity suit on Monday against the Grammy award-winning singer.

Spaniard files paternity suit against Julio Iglesias
File Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP

Javier Sanchez Santos, 41, presented the lawsuit at a court in the Mediterranean city of Valencia where he lives, his lawyer Fernando Osuna, who specialises in paternity suits, told AFP.

Santos' mother, Portuguese ballerina Maria Edite, in 1992 presented a paternity suit against Iglesias but it was eventually dismissed due to procedural reasons.

She says she had a brief affair in 1975 with the Spanish singing legend, who at the time was married to socialite Isabel Preysler.   

Now Santos wants to reopen the case based on a DNA test carried out on tissues and cigarette butts touched by Iglesias.    

Osuna says the items were collected by a private detective in Miami, where Iglesias now lives.

The test shows there is a 99 percent probability of paternity, the lawyer said.

READ MORE: DNA test confirms Julio Iglesias has secret son

Santos is “very happy and very satisfied” because “science and genetics have proven that he is right”, Osuna said.   

“It would be absurd if the court said no to a scientific truth,” he added.   

If the Valencia court rejects the lawsuit Osuna said he plans to appeal to higher courts in Spain and even up to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Iglesias, 73, has three children with Preysler — including pop star Enrique — and five children with his current partner Miranda Rijnsburger.    

Known for his romantic ballads and prolific love life that has garnered tabloid headlines, Iglesias is one of the biggest stars of Latin music, with over 300 million albums sold in his decade-long career.

READ ALSO: Did Salvador Dalí father a secret love child?

PATERNITY

He’s the daddy: Court rules that Julio Iglesias fathered secret son

A Spanish court ruled Wednesday that Grammy award-winning singer Julio Iglesias is the biological father of a 43-year-old man.

He's the daddy: Court rules that Julio Iglesias fathered secret son
Julio Iglesias pictured in Mexico in September 2015. Photo: AFP

The case was brought by Javier Sanchez Santos, the son of Portuguese former ballerina Maria Edite who says she had a brief affair with Iglesias in 1975.

READ MORE:


Javier Sanchez Santos (C), arrives with his mother Maria Edite Santos at the court in Valencia on July 4th Photo: AFP

His lawyer Fernando Osuna said Edite met Iglesias in Catalonia in Spain's northeast, that “they were together a week, in July 1975” and that “nine months later Javier was born.”

An earlier paternity case brought against Iglesias was dismissed for lack of evidence but the latest one was filed after detectives working for Sanchez presented new DNA evidence.

A detective managed to get close to the singer's son Julio Iglesias Junior while he was surfing in Miami and picked up “a bottle of water” that was used in a DNA test, the lawyer said.

The test showed that Julio Iglesias Jr and Sanchez are brothers, he added.   

The singer has always refused to do a DNA test.   

Known for his romantic ballads and a prolific love life that has long been fodder for tabloid headlines, Iglesias has sold over 300 million albums in his decades-long career. 

He has been married twice, to Spanish socialite Isabel Preysler with whom he had three children, and to Miranda Rijnsburger, his current wife with whom he has five others.

He has often presented himself as an unapologetic flirt with “an obsession for sex.”

“Don't ask me how many brothers I have, I don't even know myself,” his son Julio Jr said in 2018 on television.

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