The most popular portrayal of Julio Iglesias isn’t found in a newspaper article or a biography. It was coined in 1977 by Ramón Arcusa and Manuel de la Calva and goes like this: “I’m a rogue, I’m a gentleman” (Soy un truhan, soy un señor).
With that line, the title of a song written by Dúo Dinámico, the musicians distilled not only a public biography, but also the justification many fans used to defend their idol, and even to aspire to be like him: you could be a rogue in private while remaining a gentleman in the public eye.
Less than a year after the song’s release, Julio Iglesias separated from Isabel Preysler, and the media—working in tandem with the singer’s own communications team, which included a photographer permanently at his disposal—began to cultivate his image as a womanizer.
In his autobiography, Iglesias’ longtime manager, Alfredo Fraile, explains that, in “marketing terms,” it “suited us to enhance the legend of Julio Iglesias as a Latin lover who seduced women.”
The investigation by elDiario.es, which documents allegations of sexual assault by domestic workers, casts a new light on that carefully constructed image.
The narrative reinforced by the press for years—often echoed by the singer himself—was that the void left by the loss of the only woman he ever loved drove him to seek solace in the arms of many others.
However, for Hans Laguna, author of Hey! Julio Iglesias and the Conquest of America (Contra, 2022), Iglesias’ womanizing displays “many of the characteristics associated with hypersexual disorder or sex addiction” and, rather than something romantic, represents “an aestheticized reflection of his obsession with women.”
The covers of celebrity magazines displayed this supposedly intimate obsession week after week, while his musical output echoed the same theme in its public projection.
One example is the song that helped propel Julio Iglesias into the U.S. market: “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” a duet with Willie Nelson written by the celebrated lyricist Hal David. In the song, Iglesias declares himself “proud” to have “caressed” the “best” girls—those who “pleased” him and “filled his nights with ecstasy.”
Image of a Don Juan
From the first book to the most recent, publications about Julio Iglesias have consistently reinforced the image of Don Juan, the Latin lover. They range from the memoirs of his butler, Antonio del Valle, provocatively titled, in Spanish, Julio Iglesias: ¿Truhan o señor? Secretos íntimos desvelados por su mayordomo -Julio Iglesias: Rogue or Gentleman? Intimate Secrets Revealed by His Butler- (self-published, 1986), to the biography recently written by journalist Ignacio Peyró, El español que enamoró al mundo - The Spaniard Who Charmed the World- (Libros del Asteroide, 2025).
Following the investigation published by elDiario.es last week, the publisher and the author announced that the latter volume will be released in a new “revised and updated” edition.
Del Valle’s confessions are ruthless—as he himself describes them in the prologue—and were widely seen at the time as a betrayal of his employer. In the book, the former butler, who served Julio Iglesias for four years, describes an “environment of primitive machismo and blatant promiscuity” and portrays the mansion on the private island of Indian Creek, in Miami-Dade County, as a “sultanate.” He also characterizes it as a “tribal organization” in which Iglesias was a “tyrannical little king.”
Del Valle writes that his employer referred to the women around him as “chicks” and treated them as “hunted and subjugated beasts.” For Del Valle, Iglesias was “in private, a predator of women,” even as, in public, “he poured all his emotion into his ballads.”
“The man who has uttered the word ‘love’ more times than anyone else, accompanied by violins, only seeks sexual gratification and banal flattery,” Del Valle writes, underscoring what he presents as the contradiction between the singer’s public image and his private behavior.
This tension between public persona and private life was also examined by Carmen Martín Gaite in an article published in El País in 1985, when Julio Iglesias announced that he was withdrawing from the media spotlight to take refuge in his mansion in the Bahamas, a decision he made public at a press conference.
“With the growing eagerness to ‘sell an image’ at any cost in the showcase of consumer society,” the novelist wrote, “the conflicts between the public persona and the private individual have also increased.”
“Julio Iglesias the man is beginning to tire of his public image and is facing consequences that plunge him into a profound contradiction. Because he does not know how to pay the price. He still has not understood that there are some debts—more than he realizes—that cannot be settled with dollars,” she added.
In an exclusive interview he gave that year to ¡Hola!, in which he showcased the Bahamian house where he planned to seclude himself for a year, Julio Iglesias reflected on this dichotomy between person and persona in terms of “the soft side” and “the tough side.”
“That soft side […] was and is part of my myth, but it’s also a launching strategy. I’ve had to be very tough to succeed as a softie,” he said. He went on to argue that “the myth of Julio Iglesias” was a “manufactured collective dream,” created by “others.”
The “legend”
“Beneath every public persona there is always a person with both strengths and weaknesses,” wrote Alfredo Fraile. The book by Julio Iglesias’ manager of 15 years is more restrained than that of Antonio del Valle—beginning with its title: “Confessable Secrets” (Península, 2014).
Fraile acknowledges that he helped “build a legend” around the singer. “In Julio Iglesias’ case,” he writes, “beneath that mass idol that I myself helped create, there was a complex man, with a prodigious power of seduction, but also with personal shortcomings that, undoubtedly, have shaped his destiny far more than his artistic abilities.”
As with many other people in his circle, Iglesias ended up on bad terms with Alfredo Fraile. The same thing happened with his first manager, Enrique Herreros, his former assistants Antonio del Valle and Toncho Nava—although he seems to have reconciled with the latter, as he was commissioned to renovate the residence Iglesias bought last year in Ourense, according to media reports—and Elvira Olivares, the nanny of his eldest children. “As a rule, Julio always ended up pushing away with contempt the people who had helped him,” writes Fraile, who died in 2021 from COVID-19.
For many of his fans, the womanizing rogue and the love-struck gentleman are compatible facets of the same character. This idea appears in the original edition of Ignacio Peyró’s book, which describes Julio Iglesias as a “lustful male”—a term that refers both to an animal restless in the presence of a female and to someone driven by sensual desire—who, Peyró writes, does not deserve “much applause” in an era marked by “the vindication of a calm masculinity à la Perales,” referring to the present day.
Although the author discusses Iglesias’ relationships with women using terms such as “a constant stream of lovers,” “concubines,” “hunting ground,” and “stock renewal,” he also considers it “important to emphasize”—albeit in a footnote—that Julio Iglesias “has never been accused of conduct that is a frequent cause not only of cancellation, but directly of criminal charges.”
Even so, in the same book Peyró acknowledges that “some behaviors,” including “unwanted kisses,” “have never been acceptable.”
What’s in the law
Under Spain’s sexual freedom law, in force since 2022, an unwanted kiss constitutes sexual assault. The Supreme Court has applied this standard in recent rulings, including sentencing a police officer to one year and nine months in prison for kissing a detainee on the cheek. In another case, following a complaint by Jennifer Hermoso, Luis Rubiales was ordered to pay a fine of 10,800 euros for kissing the footballer without her consent during the medal ceremony at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia.
As Laura (a pseudonym) recounted in an interview with elDiario.es, in late summer 2021 she was kissed on the mouth without her consent “with his tongue all the way down my throat” while living in the house and working as Julio Iglesias’ personal physiotherapist. The incident occurred before Spain’s current law came into effect, when an unwanted kiss could still be considered abuse or sexual assault if it took place in a context of intimidation or violence.
Under the Penal Code of the Dominican Republic, where Laura was working at the time, “any sexual act committed with violence, coercion, threat, surprise, or deception” constitutes sexual assault. The law also establishes an aggravating circumstance when the aggressor holds a position of authority over the victim.
elDiario.es and Univision Noticias repeatedly attempted to contact Julio Iglesias and his lawyer through various channels, but received no response to questions sent by email, text message, or letters delivered to his residences.
In a public statement issued after the publication of this reporting, the singer denied “having abused, coerced, or disrespected any woman.”
Under Spain’s Law of Equality, any verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity, particularly when it creates an intimidating, degrading, or offensive environment, constitutes sexual harassment. When such conduct occurs in the workplace, as is alleged in the case of Julio Iglesias, it is considered an aggravating factor.
Global fame
Julio Iglesias is one of the few Spanish singers to achieve truly global fame. He may have been the second to do so, after Xavier Cugat, the Catalan musician who found success in the United States after emigrating to Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century. After Iglesias, perhaps only Rosalía has reached a comparable level of international recognition.
A carefully orchestrated marketing campaign—featuring a U.S. tour of nearly 70 sold-out concerts in 37 cities, performed before some 750,000 people—combined with a meticulously crafted public image built around his “Latin lover” persona, culminated in his celebrated “conquest of America” in 1984.
Around that time, journalist Maruja Torres was commissioned to write a report following Julio Iglesias in his triumphant new life in the United States, where the artist had relocated to consolidate his international conquest. After spending several days with him and his entourage, she decided not to use what she had witnessed as journalistic material.
“I realized that all I could write was a satire—because of him, because of his entourage, and because of myself,” she told elDiario.es.
Instead, Torres drew on those experiences to write her first novel, “Oh, It’s Him! A Fantastic Journey to Julio Iglesias.” “As a serious subject, it didn’t offer much beyond clichés,” she later noted.
Real people appear in the book, performing roles similar to those they held within the singer’s inner circle, including Alfredo Fraile and his brother Carlos Iglesias—employees whom Julio Iglesias, Torres said, “liked to humiliate,” as she explained in an interview with Jot Down.
By the second page, the character is already clearly drawn: “An assistant, quick on his feet, opened a closet and pulled out one of the blonde, exquisitely beautiful girls he kept on hand for occasions like this.”
“He pushed her with precise aim, and the girl fell into the space created by Julio’s left arm.” In the prologue, the author emphasized that the story was a product of her imagination and that the characters were fictional.
For decades, Julio Iglesias has been perceived—and often admired—as a womanizer, an image rarely marred by allegations of violence, abuse, or harassment toward women. One of the few partial exceptions appears in the memoirs of Vaitiaré Hirshon, who began a relationship with Iglesias in 1982, when she was 18 and he was 40.
Control
In her book “Rag Doll” (Ediciones B, 2010), Vaitiaré Hirshon accused Julio Iglesias of being “ruthless” and described in detail the control he exerted over her. She recounts that when she moved into his house in Miami, he imposed a series of “instructions”: she could not go out without a bra (“I don’t like other people looking at you on the street,” he told her); she could not wear heels higher than seven centimeters (“anything higher than that is prostitute shoes”); she could not draw attention with her makeup (“no exaggerated eyeshadow, no bright red blush—those are all habits of prostitutes”); and she could not show cleavage in her dresses.
“I watched as my glamorous Larroche dresses disappeared from my wardrobe,” she writes, “destined for the modest stitches of the sewing machine.”
In her memoir, Vaitiaré Hirshon also recounts that, beyond exerting control over her daily life, Julio Iglesias deliberately sabotaged her modeling career. “Contracts are pouring in, but you won’t let me accept them,” she writes. One of those offers was for a cosmetics advertising campaign.
“No—how could you even think of that?” Iglesias replied before she could answer.
“I’m dying inside. Could I even do the commercial? I’m not sure anymore. I feel destroyed. I open my purse and reach for my box of Valium,” she adds.
“Sometimes I wonder where I left my dreams. I’ve become your rag doll. Sometimes I think people don’t even see me; I feel their gazes pass right through me to focus on you, as if I were made of glass, translucent,” Hirshon reflects, in one of the book’s most poignant moments.
“I’m looking for a reason, and all I find is jealousy,” writes Hirshon, analyzing the control he exerted over her. “Jealousy of everything, jealousy of everyone, jealousy of all women,” she adds.
Her autobiography recounts episodes of misogynistic behavior toward men who approached her, while, according to her account, he himself brought other women to dinners, on trips, and even into their bed.
Julio Iglesias has not commented publicly on the book, and its author declined to respond to questions from this publication.
“Abusive men want their partners to live for them,” explains Olga Barroso, a psychologist specializing in gender-based violence, adding that they seek to be the person who “completely fills their partner’s mind and heart.”
Some men, she says, reach this level of control because “the essence of machismo is the belief in the superiority of men over women,” an idea they then transfer to their romantic relationships. “To make your partner subservient, it’s necessary to impose that control,” Barroso adds, speaking generally about how male violence operates.
Among these mechanisms of control, jealousy is one of the most “normalized,” as studied by Miguel Lorente in works such as “My Husband Hits Me, That’s Normal.” This is what he identifies as a “myth” that seeks to function as a mitigating factor for sexual aggression, encapsulated in expressions like: “If he’s jealous, it’s because he loves you.”
“Controlling behaviors—such as those related to jealousy, clothing, or makeup—are not an end in themselves, but strategies to achieve a specific goal: keeping the woman subordinate,” emphasizes Olga Barroso.
These behaviors, she adds, not only function as tools of domination but can also be a consequence of that dominance. In any case, when they are practiced, they become an “obstacle” for women, preventing them from exercising “freedom and justice.”
That Julio Iglesias was “very jealous” has also been described by his first wife, Isabel Preysler, in her recently published memoir, “My True Story” (Espasa, 2025).
“While I never suspected that he might be cheating on me with any of his fans or colleagues—despite some of them going overboard with their displays of admiration and affection—he, on the other hand, felt an unhealthy jealousy toward anyone who came near me,” Preysler writes.
She goes on to recount that Iglesias forbade her from dancing with any other man. “Isabel, I don’t want you to dance with anyone, not even God,” he told her—“a devastating phrase uttered through gritted teeth.”
“His excessive protectiveness and vigilance isolated me from the world,” she reflects. “There were days when I felt almost suffocated.”
“After his increasingly intense fits of jealousy, Julio would always apologize, and I would delude myself into thinking he would change. And I say ‘delusion’ because jealousy was ingrained in his DNA,” writes Preysler, the mother of Julio Iglesias’ first three children, in her book.
Preysler says Iglesias offered her a “very personal and intimate explanation” for his behavior. “I understood and learned to live with it,” she writes. “To please him, I forgot about myself and became his ideal woman.”
As a result, she adds, the artist’s world expanded while hers shrank “to the four walls” of their home. She says she avoided going out when he traveled because he “couldn’t stand” her not answering the phone when he called. In the same vein of obsessive control, Preysler writes that he did not allow her to go out with friends or to see movies with her in-laws.
When she later learned that Iglesias had been unfaithful during his trips to Miami, they separated and obtained an annulment of their marriage a few years later.
Fernán Martínez—a former press chief, manager, and confidant of Julio Iglesias during the 1980s and early 1990s—addressed this possessive behavior toward women in a 2023 interview. In it, he described the singer as “very jealous, pathologically jealous.”
Martínez recounted that when Iglesias was 45, he demanded the dismissal of one of his sound technicians—though he ultimately “forgave” him and did not follow through—because the technician had “looked at” his girlfriend. He also said Iglesias would not allow the pilots of his private plane to “enter the cockpit” if they were “younger than him,” particularly when he was traveling with a woman.
His former butler, Antonio del Valle, who worked for Julio Iglesias in Miami after his separation from Isabel Preysler, described him in his book as an “erotomaniac,” “addicted to sexual excess,” and driven by an “unbridled eroticism” that, he writes, led to a “need to demonstrate his power.” That impulse, Del Valle says, was not limited to “taking women to bed,” but extended to “exhibiting them as hunting trophies.”
“The chief of the tribe had his harem well stocked with submissive beauties, among whom there was always a favorite,” Del Valle writes. “The rest of us members of his court moved cautiously around the despot.”
Despite all this, Alfredo Fraile, Julio Iglesias’ former manager, has said he never saw the singer “treating a lady badly.”
“At least not in my presence,” Fraile adds. He represented Iglesias musically until 1984, when he left after an argument, worn down by what he described as the singer’s ego. Fraile was also the one who helped cultivate the famous red address book said to contain the phone numbers of three thousand women—a notebook he describes as “part of popular mythology,” but whose supposed contents, he insists, are false.
According to Fraile, the book does not, in fact, contain the contact information of women Iglesias slept with.
One of his dancers, who temporarily worked as a housekeeper at his Punta Cana home during the pandemic, told elDiario.es and Univision Noticias that Julio Iglesias is “a true gentleman and very respectful of all women.”
The media outlets contacted her after interviewing Rebeca (a pseudonym), a former domestic worker who alleged that the dancer, who was also her supervisor at the singer’s residence in the Dominican Republic, participated in one of the non-consensual sexual encounters. The woman dismissed the allegations as “nonsense.”
In his memoir, Alfredo Fraile writes that Julio Iglesias was “very dignified in his role as a heartthrob.” Reflecting on the singer’s meteoric rise to global stardom, Fraile acknowledges that it was in their best interest for “his captivating sexual image to remain at the forefront of the public imagination for as long as possible, and even to grow year after year.” Describing the lifestyle Iglesias led during that period, Fraile characterizes it simply as “living like a king.”
Julio Iglesias has declined to speak with any of the authors who have published books about him and has largely kept his distance from—and remained silent about—those works. An exception was revealed by Hans Laguna on a podcast where he discussed his book “Hey! Julio Iglesias and the Conquest of America.” Laguna said the singer called him to congratulate him and thank him for “all the work,” even though he acknowledged he had not read the book.
More recently, Iglesias has criticized what he calls fake news about himself, such as reports claiming he is retired. “It’s incredible the harm a bad journalist can do,” he wrote on Instagram in 2024. What he has confirmed is that he is writing his own memoir and collaborating on a future Netflix series that, he says, will change “the perception of his life.”
Fact-checking and editing: María Ramírez and Natalia Chientaroli
Translation: Jessica Weiss
Read the Spanish version here.
You can read more about our investigation here.
If you have experienced or are aware of incidents similar to those described in this report, we invite you to contact us. You may send a text or voice message via WhatsApp to +34 646 35 35 34 or write to pistas@eldiario.es. All testimonies will be handled with complete confidentiality.