Accompanied by her daughter Tamara Falcó and by good friends such as Nuria González, the widow of Fernando Fernández Tapias, Isabel Preysler unveiled to the world in Madrid her long-awaited autobiography: My True Story. The Filipino socialite said she decided to write these memoirs because she now believes she is at the ‘right age’ and that her aim has been to debunk ‘so many false things’ that have been said about her across the many decades during which she has been a coveted subject of social chronicle.
Her first love in Manila, Julio Kalaw, a playboy whom her parents did not approve of; Miguel Boyer’s excessive jealousy (‘he had the ridiculous obsession of thinking and believing that everyone fell in love with me’) or the immense pain she felt when, after the kidnapping of Dr. Iglesias Puga, she and Julio Iglesias decided to send their three children to Miami, are some of Isabel Preysler’s confessions across the book’s sixteen chapters.
But undoubtedly one of the most anticipated is the one about her eight-year romantic relationship, from 2015 to 2022, with the writer and Nobel Prize in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa. In pages feared in advance by the writer’s family, the Manila-based author offers her own version of the nature of their love and the causes of their breakup
«I am filled with perplexity and I still cannot understand the insistence of his circle to try to make everyone believe that Mario was unhappy by my side», declares Isabel Preysler, who has decided to include in the book some of the love letters that Vargas Llosa wrote to her. «The letters are mine and I can publish them», she told the media during the presentation of her memoirs. «I do not think they can upset anyone. I do not fear retaliation from the Vargas Llosa family. My book only corrects the false things that have been said. Mario and I were very happy together».
The great controversy over the Nobel’s ‘rental’
One of those ‘false things’ Isabel Preysler has wanted to debunk firmly in her autobiography is a rumor about her years living with Mario Vargas Llosa that claimed that he paid her a substantial amount of money every month to cover her expenses at the socialite’s mansion in Puerta de Hierro.
According to the biographical book Reina de corazones, the writer would have given his then partner a monthly sum of 80,000 euros to reside in his residence in the capital’s exclusive neighborhood. “People used to say that Isabel lived on knife-and-fork, but that’s not true. Mario Vargas Llosa gave a lot of money, and that is something normal to maintain that house,” the book quoted Federico Jiménez Losantos, a close friend of the writer.
Now, the said person has categorically denied that extreme. “I never asked him to contribute anything, nor to contribute to the expenses, nor the amount he decided. His contribution was less than those 80,000 euros invented, and it also decreased over time without me complaining,” the book reads. The text adds that the writer’s decision to give her a certain amount of money each month was “entirely his own, albeit influenced by Carmen Balcells”, referring to his literary agent and close friend.
Her version of the break with Vargas Llosa
My True Story provides intimate details about the start of Isabel Preysler’s romantic relationship, its peak, and, what has raised more questions until now, its end. «He kissed me in the elevator and that’s where it all began», the book’s author recounts about how, after dining with some friends at designer Elena Benarroch’s home, that moment of passion began their eight years together.
Mario Vargas Llosa with Patricia Llosa at the Nobel Prize ceremony.
She also wants to make clear that it was she who wrote the letter that ended a love story that did not end on good terms. «What really makes coexistence impossible is bad manners and you are very badly educated. My house is not a hotel where people come and go without considering others and I will not endure your coming and going», reads the harsh missive.
Although in that letter, written on light blue paper, they did not forget to note that «for many years we were very happy», those words marked their definitive goodbye. Mario Vargas Llosa would not return to Puerta de Hierro and would send someone to fetch his passport and several personal effects. After the breakup, the writer would rebuild the broken ties with his children and his ex-wife, Patricia Llosa, who accompanied him until his death last April.
