Controversy over Bertín Osborne's cover, whose son he didn't want to take care of
The singer and presenter, who is heavily in debt to the Treasury, said he did not want to be a father.
BarcelonaIn December 2023, Bertín Osborne became a father for the seventh time.The son, the fruit of a casual relationship with Gabriela Guillén, was not "wanted or sought after," as he himself admitted. After a period of asserting that, despite acknowledging paternity of the child, he did not intend to take care of him or act as a father, this Wednesday the ranchera singer and presenter changed his attitude and officially put himself and the child on the cover of the magazine. Hello!, a move that many have seen as an image cleanup.
On the magazine's cover, Osborne can be seen wearing a summery green shirt and accompanied by his nineteen-month-old David, whose face isn't pixelated and is fully recognizable. The presenter claims he decided to do this report because he doesn't want his son to be a "hidden child." In an appearance on the Antena 3 program Yas summerOsborne explained the reasons for the cover, which has been widely criticized. "Gaby called me and said, 'Bertín, why don't we take some photos? It seems like we've marginalized the child, hidden. One day he'll think his father hid him.' Gaby asked me, and since we get along well, I decided to do it," she explains. Despite the good relationship she says she has with the mother of her child, the physiotherapist and manager of a beauty clinic does not appear on the cover, but does appear in a second article that also features her with the child. The magazine details that Osborne and Guillén have decided not to appear together in the photographs to avoid "misunderstandings."
Despite Osborne's arguments justifying the report, various Spanish media outlets claim that the singer's pose is due to economic reasons. In a bad financial moment for him –The Treasury is claiming a debt of 865,601.41 euros.–, would have decided to make the cover to collect around 6,000 euros, a figure that seems very small compared to the money he owes to the Tax Agency. Osborne was outraged by this speculation. "I haven't collected a single euro! I urge those undocumented immigrants who say I've collected money to prove it," he told Yas summer.
He also criticized those who say it's a strategy to whitewash his image. "I can't understand why there are people who present everything in such a twisted way. I've had to feel like it's a setup, that we're taking advantage of the child or that we're not putting it together to later report on the baptism. Are we crazy? I don't need any of that," the presenter defended in his celebrated intervention.