Ruminations

The Human Condition : Celebrity Familial Dysfunction

"You can't tell me what's happening? My Dad isn't here with you [funeral home]?"
Jose Joel, Mexican entertainer

"No one knows anything about what's happened. His children are absolutely devastated, to the point where they wonder if it's even true that he died."
"She [youngest daughter Sarita Sosa] wouldn't answer any of our calls, but then she's on TV all pretty, with makeup, and hair, saying a bunch of lies ... It's so easy to pick up the phone and say, 'Come see my dad. Come see your dad."
Brenda Ocana, Manager, Jose Jose

"My history has been one of ups and downs."
"But thanks to God, I keep working, drawing from my life experiences songs that I can sing."
"I want to you to know that aside from the small tumor, I am well. I am ready to take on this new adventure in my life."
Jose Jose

"He left in peace. Thank God, he left very calm."
"Actually, I don't like doing interviews. I don't like fame, that's why I've always been so private, but I know my dad would have wanted me to do this for him."
"Despite all our differences, we must be united in these moments. My responsibility as a daughter and as a sister is to tell them what happened with their dad, and that we have to stick together."
Sarita Sosa, daughter, Jose Jose

"We have every right to see my dad. My half-sister has a lot to explain to me and to all of Mexico."
"Please, wherever you are [Sarita], get in touch with us. I've been talking to you all day [leaving unanswered messages] and I'm here, and I've been telling you since yesterday: I see my dad's body, or I don't believe anything."
Marysol Sosa

The Mexican singer José José accepts his award during the 6th Annual Latin Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles in 2005. Photograph: Héctor Mata/AFP/Getty Images

Spanish language singer, actor and songwriter Jose Jose known to his global music fans as "el Principe de la Cancion ("Prince of Song") has died of pancreatic cancer at age 71. His three children, two older, a son and daughter, and a third through a third marriage, have captured headlines of their own, Jose Joel, the singer's son, and Marysol, the older daughter, accusing their step-sister of a sinister plot to keep them from seeing their father's body.

On arrival at the Caballero Rivero Westchester funeral home in Miami on a flight from Mexico City, Jose Joel was informed by a funeral director his father was not there, despite that he was meant to be: "In this moment, he's not. I have no information", the son was told.

The younger daughter was front and centre on television, recounting her famous father's final days, while her two older half-siblings were searching Miami in an effort to discover where their father was lying, preparatory to a funeral and burial. The older siblings, trailed by swarms of reporters no doubt intrigued by the potential of capturing photographs and narratives of family dysfunction in the claims that the younger daughter 'kidnapped' the father, and obstinately refuses to allow her half-siblings access to his body have accused their sister of keeping details of their father's death from them.

She was, however, generously recounting for the studio audience how she had taken her father home to Miami from Mexico, to stay with her while his descending health sapped his life. The children, all themselves in the entertainment industry and as such fodder for gossip, admiration and celebrity status, can not be less than mindful of that old adage in show business that "any publicity is good publicity", focusing the eye of the public on their curious shenanigans.

A singing icon in Latin America, his children obviously seek to replace their father in the Latin American public's vast and admiring public acclaim for one of their own.

Known as the Prince of Song, José José sold over 100 million albums Getty

Jose Jose, who took on the double name from his father, an opera singer after whom he was named as Jose Romulo Sosa Ortiz, recorded 30 albums and 20 Hot Latin Songs all of them hits, focusing for the most part on love and loneliness; obvious hot-button issues in Latin American song-lore. Jose Jose was one of those rare Mexican artists who surpassed one million album sales each year for twenty years. On the dark side, his alcoholism and cortisone shot-habit prior to performances added up to poor health.

With the poor health went unsteady finances, until the hammer came down with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in 2017. Marysol and Joel accuse their half-sister Sarita of isolating their father from the rest of his family, in a calculated effort to profit from his legacy, once she flew him to Miami to live with her. As a result, it has been two years since the two older siblings had seen their father. Just after he died, Sarita contacted her siblings, and that was the last contact they had with her about their father.

When they arrived in Miami with their entourage, they stopped by the police, the Mexican Consulate and the Homestead hospital where their father was reported to have died. None of these authorities were able to give the two any information relating to the death. Moreover, the Homestead hospital found that there was no record of the singer having been there at all. No one was able to confirm the death.

Sarita meanwhile, in her exclusive interview with Primer Impacto on Univision, claimed her father died from the effects of a poor physical state, and not pancreatic cancer as reported. A celebrity-family-style circus to have all their fans salivating in delight.